


The Search For Mr Teaside

by Donsular



Category: Mary Poppins (Movies)
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Poppins Family, Transformation, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24216232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donsular/pseuds/Donsular
Summary: Mary has lots of cousins. And as you’d expect, for someone related to Miss Poppins, every one of them has their own special bit of magic. Though for one man in particular, his stuff and nonsense is a little more problematic.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 22





	1. Mr Tumble

“So who are we going to see anyway?” Jack asked, trying not to get distracted from the road. Currently, he was riding his bike through London with Mary, John and Annabel precariously balanced on the ladder seat and Georgie in the front basket. The youngest’s constant moving meant it was a lot more difficult to see where he was going, but so long as he was careful, he could manage. And anyway, they wouldn’t fall off, not while Mary was around. She always had a habit of being completely on top of everything and making sure nobody got hurt, even during the silliest of activities.

“We’re going to see my cousin. Apparently he’s gotten lost in his own house.” Mary answered simply.

“How on Earth did he manage that?”

“It’s a very strange house, Jack. When we get there, you’ll realise it’s easier than you think. And it’s a left here.” She said, adding to her direction with a simple gesture. On the opposite side of the ladder, John and Annabel were eyeing each other as they tried to hold back from giggling. And upon noticing, Mary couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

“Honestly, you two are as bad as Jane. Come on then, what’s so funny?” The twins seemed to have a silent conversation as they tried to decide who would speak. In the end, it was Annabel who asked,

“Does he have a strange name too?” Mary eyed her quizzically.

“What on earth do you mean by that?”

“Well, Topsy has a really weirdly long name. We just wondered if it was a family thing to have a strange name.”

“Well I don’t have a strange name, so it seems a little silly to assume my whole family does when you only know the two of us.” The twins glanced to each other, grinning from ear to ear, not sure whether to say what they were thinking. But Jack must have had the same idea, as he quickly commented,

“You have to admit though, Mary, that Poppins is a fairly odd name.” She didn’t respond.

“Go on then,” John goaded, “what’s his name? Is it Mr Doodletip?”

“Or Chip Monk?” Annabel suggested.

“What about Lancy McDoydadoyle.” Georgie sputtered between giggles.

“Or Ben Dover?”

“JACK!” He half expected Mary to reach over and smack him, but she instead chose to glare daggers at him so he could continue cycling safely. Though that did mean it took him a minute to stop sniggering.

“Mary, if you think that’s bad, maybe later I’ll tell you the other one I thought of. That one really isn’t child friendly.” His grin grew wider, “You can get a lot of good names by shortening Richard.” Mary rolled her eyes.

“Well, that is his name, so please don’t go making inappropriate jokes about it.”

“Really? His name’s Richard? That seems very... normal.”

“Because it is normal. His name is Richard Teaside. It’s a perfectly fine name in my opinion.” The group fell silent, all quietly disappointed by the mundane nature of a usually crazy family. Mary seemed to sense this and couldn’t help but add,

“He does have a strange nickname, however.” Everyone perked up at that,

“Go on then.”

“Rumble Tumble.” That was it, there was no stopping them from laughing, and Mary had no intention of trying. The nickname was supposed to be silly. Everyone she’d ever know had had a good laugh hearing someone with such a serious name being called something so absolutely absurd. Richard himself loved it.

Eventually, they managed to calm down enough to realise they were about to arrive at their destination. They pulled up alongside a rather large mansion none of them had ever seen before. Large columns stood proudly around the perimeter of the grey- once white- building. Towering windows seemed to allow no view inside, despite being taller than any normal sized adult. An enormous door, engraved with a welcoming message, stood in the centre of the property, with an ostentatious lion shaped door knocker, that was almost as large as the decorative gargoyles lining the roof. It looked as if it had been built with all the love and care of an ancient gothic cathedral, and yet, as they hopped off the bike, they couldn’t help but notice that it seemed to be completely derelict.

“Are you sure someone lives here?” Asked Jack, stepping through the copious amounts of weeds growing through the badly cracked patio, “It looks like it hasn’t been cleaned up in years.” And after tripping and nearly falling flat on his face, the leerie was especially careful on the uneven flagstones.

“I’m afraid poor Richard doesn’t go out very much. I can’t imagine he even knows how bad it is.”

“So what, he just stays inside all day?” Georgie asked, “That must be boring.”

“You would think so.” She said, inspecting the fountain which had long since broken. All it held now was a few puddles, that were almost black with dirt and mould, and the slowly rotting carcass of a dead pigeon. “I honestly don’t know how he could let such a beautiful house fall into such disrepair.”

“Look at this grass! It’s nearly as tall as me!” Mary turned to see where John stood, waist deep, in the untrimmed lawn.

“I wouldn’t go walking through that John. You can’t really see what’s in there and I would imagine the local stray cats would be using that as their litter tray.” John grimaced at the thought and hurried out. He rather liked his shoes and didn’t want to ruin them with cat muck.

Georgie was in a similar position with the birds. A murder of crows had taken a seat in a dead tree and were currently watching the group. He’d never seen so many before; there had to be about ten. But knowing that meant there’d be plenty of bird poo dropping, he scurried away to find Annabel, who was inspecting the engraving on the door.

“Et ait: ingredere, bene- benedictay? Domini cur foris- ugh, I give up. Mary, what does this say?” Mary wandered over and inspected the letters before announcing,

“It’s Latin. A bible verse if I’m not mistaken. My Latin is a little rusty, but I believe it says, ‘And he said, ‘Come in, O blessed of the Lord! Why do you stand outside? For I have prepared the house, and a place for your camels.’’”

“Why does he have that on his door?”

“He’s always been a religious man. And I suppose it’s nice to have something a bit different from a welcome mat.” Once everyone else had gathered at the door, Mary sighed.

“I suppose he probably won’t answer if he’s gotten lost in there. Well I guess we should be glad the house is so run down, otherwise it’d be much harder to do this.” Without warning, Mary jammed the head of her umbrella against the lock, and with a firm jolt, the old rusted lock snapped, opening the door.

“Are you sure it was a good idea to break the lock?” Mary kept her eyes forward as she answered the confused leerie.

“Well I certainly can’t imagine someone thinking to break in to try and rob this place.” She had a point. And no more questions were raised as they entered the mansion.

Upon entering, they realised just how big the place was. It seemed to have eternally high ceilings, enormous chandeliers and a perfectly polished checkered marble floor. Great red curtains adorned the windows, with golden ropes to tie them open with a knot as big as a human head. It seemed like Mr Teaside didn’t like small things.

“Huh, wonder what he’s compensating for?” Jack joked. And despite being rather far from him, Mary still heard, tutting disapprovingly under her breath.

“Oh, honestly.” However, she quickly collected herself. Straightening up, she rallied the group together.

“Come along now. Spit spot. If it’s as bad as I think it is, then we’ll need to stick together.”

“But Mary,” Georgie asked, “how are we going to find him? This place is huge!”

“I am almost certain that he’ll be in his secret room at the back of the house. We just need to find it. I’m afraid this house is the trickiest maze I’ve ever encountered. So we mustn’t split up.” The four of them seemed satisfied with that and followed her without question, as she began to lead the way through a rather complex route, passing through countless rooms.

They couldn’t help but notice that each one was more peculiar than the last. They began with a normal living room, which led into an indoor farm, then a bathroom with two toilets, followed by the kitchen. It seemed a bit ridiculous to have to walk through a farm and a bathroom to get from the living room to the kitchen. But then it got even weirder, as the next room was purely white, with a single table in the centre with a phone atop it, surrounded by at least 30 other phones along the walls, each one labelled with the name of a specific person. Jack couldn’t help but wonder why anyone, even someone so rich, would use a different phone for different people. Whereas the children were more confused by the fact that every other room had had carpeted floors, wood panelling to half way up the walls with wallpaper the rest of the way. There had been engraved patterns on the ceilings, paintings, chandeliers, copious amounts of decorative chairs, and even windows, and yet this room was just white and full of phones.

“It should be just through here.” Mary announced, finding her charges were quite relieved to know they’d be able to leave the strange house soon enough. They made their way across the room and through the next door to a room that was piled high with junk. Shelves were filled to near collapsing and a central pile was stacked to the ceiling with even more rubbish that had been unceremoniously dumped. The room seemed darker with the looming towers around them, blocking what little light the old cracked bulb (that was strangely the only light in this particular room) could provide. Though they couldn’t help but notice the distinct lack of Mary’s cousin.

“Goodness gracious glory me. It looks like he’s rearranged everything again. Honestly, it’s no wonder he gets lost. Anyone would think he’s doing it deliberately.” Feeling a little confused, John asked,

“What do we do now, then?”

“I’ll have a look around and see if I can find any clue as to what he’s done.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just wander around?”

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be such a good idea in a house this big. When he called me, he said he’d been lost for a week. That doesn’t just happen in any old house.” So as John contemplated what else they were going to find, Mary had a look around. Richard had a habit of leaving various fantastical items all over the place. If she could find anything like that, then she’d finally have a chance.

While she got to work, Jack and the children were left to wander around the room, looking at all the strange things it had to offer. Jack couldn’t help but stop and stare when he saw a map of the world, which, at a first glance, looked normal, but upon closer inspection, was completely wrong. The Caribbean, England, Ireland, Iceland, Madagascar, New Zealand, and most of the islands in the East Indies simply weren’t there. Not to mention that, according to the map, Atlantis was a real place you could visit, New York was the capital city of Thailand and Antarctica was simply called ‘Pengwin’. The whole thing was bizarre and poorly printed, interesting him so much that he didn’t even notice what Georgie found.

Only a few feet away, the youngest of the Banks children had come across a rather unusual porcelain rabbit. It was painted in the usual brown shades one would expect for a rabbit, but it had rather strange metallic gold patches in swirled shapes. But Georgie thought the weirdest thing was when it blinked.

“Are you alive?” He whispered, not wanting anyone else to wonder why he was talking to a seemingly inanimate object. But it wasn’t inanimate. An inanimate object wouldn’t nod at him.

“That’s so cool! Do you know where Rumble Tumble is?” He asked, giggling at the name. However, the rabbit shook its head where it sat. It didn’t look very happy being in the junk room, and was looking at the floor miserably, as if it was looking for a bit of pity. Which was pretty easy to get from the young boy.

“Don’t you like it here?” It shook its head. “Do you have any friends?” No. “Oh.” But then he was struck with a brilliant idea.

“I know! We passed through a room that was like a farm. I bet there’s carrots in there. I could go get you some and we could be friends.” The porcelain rabbit looked up, smiling with its eyes as it nodded enthusiastically. Georgie grinned at the prospect of having something to do other than standing around and waiting. So, with the idea firmly seated in his head, he made his way to the door, slipping out before Mary or Jack could spot him and sneakily closing the door behind him. However, he wasn’t totally unseen.

John and Annabel saw him leave, having not been as interested in inspecting broken snow globes as they may have looked. With Mary’s words of the importance of sticking together ringing in their ears, they followed soon after. They couldn’t let him run off and get lost somewhere. They had to bring him back.

This time, however, the door was not quietly shut, as the twins hadn’t thought they needed to be stealthy. So as soon as they heard it close, Mary and Jack’s heads shot to where the sound came from.

“Where are they going now?” Mary muttered, pacing over to the door, “I thought I told them we need to stay together.” But when she opened the door, she was given a shock she was nowhere near prepared for. The door now led to a different room. The white phone room should have been there, but it had been entirely replaced.

“Jack, you need to see this.” When the leerie joined her, his eyes widened.

“How is that possible?” Mary shut the door for a moment and opened it again, revealing another room. She closed it and opened it again and once more, the scene had changed. Several times she shut the door and opened it to see something entirely new. Reality set in as the pair realised they’d lost the kids, and now with the rooms changing so fast, they were probably never going to find them.

“This is so much worse than I imagined.”

“You’re not kidding.” Jack’s attempt at lightening the mood failed as soon as he started to speak, the fear of what was going on, being far more powerful than any joke.

“We need to find Richard as soon as possible and put a stop to this, otherwise I can’t imagine we’ll ever find them, or the exit.” Jack’s heart pounded slightly faster than he’d ever admit as his mind raced for any idea of what they could do.

“So I guess we can’t get a route now.”

“You’re right. But we’ll be fine,” Mary assured, “We just need to stay together and with a bit of luck we’ll find Richard. He’ll be able to put this right with our help.”

“I hope you’re right.” Jack groaned.

“Alright then. Let’s go.” Opening the door once more to a random room, the pair took a deep breath and stepped through together. They’d get this sorted eventually. It was their only option.


	2. The Not-Quite-Giraffe

This hadn’t gone at all as well as Georgie had hoped. Upon leaving the junk room, he had been taken to a new place entirely. It was a farm, but not the kind he’d seen earlier. It was an ant farm. And as Georgie yelped and dived back through the way he came, he realised he had a much bigger problem on his hands. The junk room was gone. Which in 99% of situations, would be considered a good thing. But Georgie just so happened to be in that unfortunate 1%. He was now lost and all alone.

Now, most 8 year olds in such a predicament may be inclined to panic or even cry. However, Georgie, with the magical experience he had, did neither of those things. Though that isn’t to say he was totally pleased with his current situation. Still, he was fairly well able to bump his doubts into the back of his mind so he could focus on the fact that he was standing before a group of mannequins that seemed to have a life of their own.

Infact, the room was full of mannequins in a sort of dress shop. Pristine white wooden panels jutted up from the maple wood floor, to climb the walls part way, covering the lower half of a rather ostentatious pink striped paint. Closest to Georgie’s end of the room, stood several work stations, where countless needles whizzed about, tangling their thread trails together before plunging into reems and reems of silk and tabaret to complete patterns that were more complex than the inner mechanisms of the universe itself. They dashed to and from a large pile of fabric in the middle of the room, spearing each piece like they were hunting fish, before racing back with the supplies for their craft. Ribbons and buttons and embroidered accessories spiralled out of several boxes to adorn the gowns in their final touches. The mannequins were rather excitedly picking the finished garments to drape over themselves and preened their faceless faces before strutting down the catwalk at the back of the room in front of an enormous window (that strangely didn’t seem to look out over anything) in some form of fashion show, where the only people watching were the other participants. And of course Georgie.

The whole charade meant it was actually several minutes before any of them noticed him. Long enough that Georgie was actually considering the theory that, without eyes, the mannequins couldn’t actually see him. But of course that couldn’t be true. Not when they were so fascinated with their own looks and the clothes they wore. It was simply a matter of time before their eyes (or whatever strange alternative they had hidden where their eyes should be) fell on his tiny frame.

And that time eventually came. The first mannequin to see him almost didn’t notice, but it’s head quickly shot back for a second look before hurriedly alerting its friends. Before he knew it, Georgie was swarmed with a rather large group of them, all quietly interested in him, yet mostly scared.

“Hello,” Georgie said, trying to force a smile, “I’m Georgie. I’m lost, could you help me?” They looked between each other, seemingly having a whole silent conversation, before one of them- in a rather incredible green crushed velvet ball gown- plucked a square of fabric, a needle and thread from one of the work stations and began to feverishly stitch. Once completed- in an impressive few seconds- they held up the fabric for Georgie to read,

“We’ll help. Where do you need to go?”

“I came here with my nanny, Mary poppins, and Jack and my brother and sister. I need to find them.” The mannequins thought for a moment, seemingly trying to put together some sort of plan of action. They were looking over him with intense not-eyes, doing their best to assess something. And once they spotted Gillie, held tightly at his side, they took a fresh piece of fabric and began to stitch again,

“We can’t leave this room, but we could make a guide for you out of that.” The mannequin pointed to Gillie as it showed the message, holding the pose long enough for Georgie to feel quite nervous.

“What do you want to do with Gillie? You won’t hurt him, will you?” They seemed to chuckle before responding,

“Of course not. We simply mean to bring him to life, just like us. Then he’ll be able to travel with you.”

Now, in many ways, Georgie was very different from most children his age. But like all children, he had absolutely dreamt of the possibility of bringing his favourite stuffed animal to life. And to be given the opportunity to make that dream a reality made him ecstatic beyond belief.

“That’s so cool!” He squealed, jumping around in a small circle, much to his onlookers’ amusement, “Yes! Please do that! That would be great!”

He immediately thrust Gillie in their direction, the mannequins only pausing for the briefest of moments before snatching up their new project and setting to work. Georgie was left to watch in awe as they pulled spools of thread from who-knows-where in every colour imaginable and some he’d never even seen before. They twisted and pulled and plunged and yanked, and although Georgie didn’t exactly have a good view- being stood at the back of the crowd- he was beginning to hear increasingly loud noises that sounded like every animal other than a giraffe. It growled. It squealed. It barked. It chirped. It sounded strange, but he honestly didn’t know what sound a giraffe was supposed to make, anyway.

It kicked and thrashed and just as it was completed, Gillie burst from the group, dashing around the room like a wild horse. In fact, he was quite a lot like a horse. He was around that size and he had a long thread mane. The tail trailed far behind him, dragging along the floor like some kind of grand wedding veil, while he tried to knock the threads sprouted from the horns out of his face. Large black buttons were in place of his eyes and brown velvet spots shimmered in contrast to his felt body. His feet seemed to have been dipped in wax to create a sort of hoof that was fairly rounded at first, but began to flatten out and form a more natural shape as he continued to run. It was incredible and magical and a million other good things. He was rather impressed that they’d done such a good job despite having probably never seen a giraffe before. However it was also a chaotic mess.

Gillie was clearly startled by the whole situation and continued to sprint and buck, kicking away anything that was too close for his liking. This posed a rather large problem as the garments around the room were being trampled, much to the mannequins’ horror. But that wouldn’t last long. It only took a few moments before they had put together a Stetson and stitched together a length of rope. Then, the largest mannequin- who already looked like a cowboy in his roguish costume- grabbed the hat, placed it on his head, and began swinging a lasso up in the air. He was closely followed by another mannequin, who’d made a sign that simply said, “yeehaw”. It seemed they’d become rather large fans of cowboys through all their fashion research. Gillie barely had a chance to react before the rope landed around his neck, pulling him to a halt so sudden, that he actually came toppling over.

The room fell silent. Gillie was still squirming on the floor, not quite used to his new form and thus having some difficulty in standing back up again. Georgie knew he would have to calm him down, or else the poor thing would panic and destroy the place completely. 

While the mannequins kept their distance, seemingly quite scared of what they’d made, Georgie took a deep breath and bravely approached the Not-Quite-Giraffe. Gillie eyed him suspiciously, hissing and flicking his tongue out to intimidate him. But when that didn’t work and Georgie got closer, it turned into a tiger’s growl and a dinosaur’s roar as he removed the rope. Yeah, they really mustn’t have had a clue what kind of noise he should make.

“It’s ok. We’re not going to hurt you. We just needed you to stop panicking so much. You were knocking things over.” Gillie seemed to understand, but Georgie only knew for certain when he started petting him, and Gillie calmly rolled onto his back and purred.

“See, it’s ok!” Gillie tried to latch onto his hands, but unfortunately, with a lack of claws, he could only push at his hands with his hooves.

“Ha ha, you’re a funny thing, aren’t you?” As soon as Georgie stopped, Gillie flipped back over, panting and wagging his tail like he wanted to be a dog now. Though when Georgie asked, “do you know where I need to go?” The affirmative bark was more akin to a seal.

“You can’t decide what animal you are, can you?” He baaed in response.

Georgie turned to the mannequins again, who were much happier seeing Gillie in a good mood, and asked,

“So he’ll help me find them?” The mannequins nodded as one pulled out a freshly stitched sign,

“Climb onto his back and he should take you to your friends.” Georgie smiled, turning back to Gillie with excitement. He’d never ridden a horse before and he certainly hadn’t expected his first experience to be with a creature so bizarre. It took some doing to get onto him, especially without a saddle or stirrups to get his foot into. But once he managed, with a little help from Gillie and the mannequins, Gillie offered him a suspiciously parrot-like ‘good job’, before happily tweeting and attempting to flap the wings he didn’t have, leading to an angry caw when he realised.

The mannequins couldn’t help but chuckle at them, one even going as far as stitching the message ‘I’m sure he’ll figure himself out eventually’. Though Georgie wasn’t so sure, as he began exploring the room, sniffing his surroundings while he buzzed.

“How long will he stay like this?” Georgie asked.

“Long enough to find your friends, I’m sure.” He wasn’t exactly sure how long it would take, but Georgie hoped they were right. Even if the mannequins didn’t leave their room, they would surely have some understanding of the magical house they lived in. Right?

“Well, thank you for helping me. I didn’t really know what I was going to do before.” He smiled, leaning round to see Gillie’s face, “Say thank you Gillie, they’re the reason you’re alive!”

“Ribbit.”

“You’re more than welcome,” one stitched, “When we say we can make anything, we mean it!” Georgie grinned from ear to ear, ecstatic that he’d be going on another adventure with his magical teddy. He always thought he was too young to do such a thing all on his own, but now he could be the adventurer he always dreamt of, and go on a mission to find his friends.

“Come on Gillie, lets go find them.” The Not-Quite-Giraffe looked to the door, finding it had already been opened for them, leading into a new room that they couldn’t quite make out from their distance. As Georgie quickly said goodbye, Gillie decided he wanted to really make an exit.

Standing in the centre of the room, he reared back, standing proudly on his hind legs to reach an impressive height. Georgie clung on as he wondered what would come bellowing out of such a magnificent creature. A harrowing howl? A mighty roar? A powerful neigh? Georgie was thrilled and bursting with excitement when, suddenly, Gillie let out the loudest, most intimidating and formidable sound he’d ever heard,

“MOOOOOOO!”

They landed back with a thump as Gillie bolted forward into the land of who-knows-where, with the mannequins silently cheering them on. Now Georgie was well and truly sure he wasn’t going to be lost for much longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, ok, so I just realised I’ve been here for a year now. That went really fast. I hope you’re still enjoying yourselves, I know I am. And I’ll see you next Saturday. Love ya!


	3. Pairs

They couldn’t have known they were at the other side of the house from everybody else. The door just took them away to a random point. They had no clue where they were in relation to anyone else, which is why the twins felt it was so important to stay together. They couldn’t allow themselves to be split up even further.

“So how are we actually going to get back? We can’t even follow one route.”John had been particularly anxious about the whole situation for a while now, discovering that he didn’t really like being lost very much. And this meant Annabel spent most of her time trying to calm him down rather than making progress in getting them to Georgie or Jack or Mary.

“I don’t know yet. But the house isn’t going to be infinitely big. So we’ll probably come across somebody by accident at some point.”

“But what if we don’t? What if the house has too many rooms? What if it won’t take us to rooms that already have someone in it? We might never get out!”

“John, please just stop. If we panic, then we’ll definitely be lost forever. We need to focus on what IS happening and not what COULD happen.” Either her point made sense, or he couldn’t think of anymore arguments to make, because from then on, John remained quiet.

They’d been walking for a little while now. Since leaving the junk room, they actually come across fairly normal rooms. So far they’d been in 3 bedrooms, a wine cellar, a room filled with fish tanks, a garage and even the phone room from earlier. But that hadn’t led them to Mary or Jack.

It was at this point, that the twins came across a new room, which was much stranger than anything else they’d come across so far. It was fairly dark and had probably once been some kind of greenhouse, except it wasn’t made of glass. It was a literal green house greenhouse. Yes, with carpets, a fully fitted kitchen, beds and even a fireplace! All in one room! And as most of the plants were rather large and overgrown, clearly having been left to their own devices for some time now, it made it quite difficult to tell where the plants stopped and the green walls started. To top it off, despite the vegetation being the sole inhabitants of the room, there was no way for them to get any sunlight. Nope. Not a single window. Which raised more questions as to how they were being watered if the room had been abandoned for so long. Annabel had actually been about to suggest that they were fake plants, before she noticed a vent up in the top corner of the room where bees were flying in and out to pollinate the plants before returning to wherever they kept the hive. And while Annabel was rather curious to figure out how on Earth the room could support so many plants, John was much more eager to move on.

“Can we get out of here? My hay fever’s going to start up in a minute.”

“Oh don’t worry about that, dear! We’ll make sure to keep the pollen away from you.” The twins froze.

“Who said that?”

“That would me, deary.” John and Annabel whipped their heads around to find that the source of the voice was a small collection of flowers and leaves that had bundled together to create the illusion of an elderly woman’s face. But what defiantly wasn’t an illusion, was her voice. That was very much real.

“Oh I’m sorry I scared you there. It’s not often we get visitors.” The twins could hardly believe it. They’d seen strange things with Mary poppins before, but they never expected to come across something so magical in their own world.

“How- but- you’re talking!”

“I know. I’m just as surprised as you. The last time I spoke to anyone was when Richard first made this place.” She chuckled to herself, “He realised gardening wasn’t for him after a few weeks and gave up. Nobody’s been here since.” The twins were certainly surprised by the whole thing to say the least, but after getting over the initial shock, it was Annabel who remembered her manners first,

“Well, I’m Annabel, and that’s John. What’s your name?”

“I’m Begonia, pleasure to meet you.” She held out a leaf for them to shake, offering a warm smile. “Please excuse the mess. I can’t really keep this place tidy on my own, and I’m afraid dear old Richard has long since fallen out of love with gardening.”

“That’s alright. We actually came here with some others, to look for him. But we got lost and we’re trying to find them again. You wouldn’t be able to help would you?” Begonia paused to think before her face suddenly vanished from the flowers. Seconds later, a new bunch across the room clumped together to create her new form as she rifled through the flower beds, muttering away to herself.

“For goodness sake! I know they’re around here somewhere.” She scowled as she caught sight of a rather suspicious looking Venus fly trap. “Gerald, I swear on my mother’s compost if you don’t hand them over right now, I’ll take away your flies.” The unusually large plant whimpered slightly at her surprisingly snappish tone before opening its mouth to reveal several items, much to Begonia’s delight.

“Come along now children, don’t be shy!” As the twins approached, Begonia’s leafy hand reached into Gerald’s mouth and pulled out what appeared to be a bag with material so thin, they could just about see that it was filled with something green. “Here’s some grass for you. And I know what you’re thinking, but trust me, grass can always come in handy when you’re in a pinch.” She passed the bag to Annabel, before picking up a package made out of leaves. She unfolded it to reveal two strips of cork with countless bee stingers jammed in them. “This one will be a good defence if anything tries to hurt you. I’m afraid not all these rooms are so nice.” John took the stingers as she held up the final item, a pink gerbera. “And you can use this flower to leave a trail wherever you go. That way, your friends will know where you’ve been. It never runs out of petals you see. You could pluck some to leave behind a message if you’d like.”

With the gifts in hand, John and Annabel smiled gratefully at Begonia. Feeling rather excited to get on with their search, they almost forgot their manners.

“Thank you! This will be a big help.” Begonia chuckled at Annabel’s excitement.

“All I ask is that when you find Richard, tell him to come by here some time. It can get quite lonely.”

“We will.” John promised. “Mary Poppins will make sure everything gets fixed!” Begonia’s eyes widened.

“Mary Poppins, you say? My my, she hasn’t been here for a while. She did a good job last time. Hopefully she can do it again, whatever it was. She managed to make this house much less chaotic. You could venture all over without having to worry about if you’d ever find your way back. But I’m afraid Richard didn’t let that last too long.”

“You used to leave the rooms?”

“Oh yes! I had some lovely friends over at the farms. But for some reason, Richard seems to like to have the rooms moving about. I can’t say I know why. But it’s certainly frustrating. Half of the flowers are still lost around the house!” The twins, now more determined than ever, looked to each other with a fire in their eyes.

“Well don’t worry about that,” Annabel started, “it won’t be like that for long.”

It wasn’t much longer before the twins had set off again. But unfortunately it wasn’t soon enough. For when they went through the next door, they arrived in the next room only seconds after another pair had left.

Mary and Jack had been all over the place during their time. Mary hadn’t bothered to stop in any room they’d visited so far, clearly never satisfied with where they were. This was a little difficult for Jack, who, on a few occasions, had been totally in awe of their new location and was almost left behind by Mary, who hadn’t noticed him stopping. However, they still managed to stay together despite this, holding doors open for each other to make sure they got through before the room could change.

Jack had tried to distract himself from his situation by attempting to converse with Mary. Unfortunately, she was rather more focused on finding her way through the house and would barely say a word. Infact, it had been nearly an hour since he managed to get more than two words out of her at a time. Jack had asked why they didn’t just stand by a door, opening it and closing it until they got to the right room. But, as Mary said, each door can only lead to a specific few other places. So you had to walk through each and use any other doors in each of the rooms to get somewhere else. Jack found this quite ridiculous, but Mary was quick to remind him that back when the rooms didn’t move around on their own, and actually could be controlled, it made it a fair bit easier to navigate the enormous building.

He was glad Mary seemed to know where most of the doors could lead, he was feeling pretty confident that they’d have everything sorted pretty soon. But then Mary seemed to change her tone. She stopped recognising the rooms, as it seemed that Richard had added more, and before they knew it, they were totally lost in a section of the house Mary had never been in before. And that last hour when she didn’t talk, she instead spent trying to fathom out how to get back somewhere she might recognise.

And this is why they stopped upon reaching the art room.

The pair came across what appeared to be a painter’s workshop. Papers were scattered on the floor surrounding several easels, all holding canvas paintings in various stages of completion. The room was a cluttered mess with shelves stacked high with small statues, fruit and other random objects that must have been used for references. Canvases, papers and countless pots of paint were all mixed up in open cupboards to be used by the tens of paint brushes that were fluttering about. Jack watched in awe as brushes shot back and forth between a their canvases and a large central table that was covered in unmixed wet paint. It seemed the journey from the canvas to the table (which was only about three or four feet) was more than enough to travel for paint, and whenever they needed a new colour, instead of looking to another area, they called upon the paint tubes to drop some more on the table in front of them. The result was an enormous pile of paint dripping off the side of the table like a waterfall, before settling on the floor as if it were a river.

Mary seemed thrilled to be there, a hopeful smile gracing her features, as she stepped through the paint, unperturbed by the fact that her beautiful blue heels would be ruined.

“I take it you know where we are now?” Mary faced him with a satisfied smile,

“Yes. This room used to be full of beautiful paintings that could talk as they got older. It looks like he’s moved them, but there’s plenty of old sketches still here that we might be able to talk to.” Her smile suddenly vanished and she reached out to shoo a brush at Jack’s hip that had started painting the end of his jacket.

“Watch out for those. I imagine it’s been quite a while since anyone was in here so they’re probably quite excited to use us as their muses.”

With that, Mary turned around again and began sifting through papers and cupboards to find any images that they could talk to. And, feeling otherwise useless, Jack decided to join her, starting at the other end of the room and looking out for anything unusual.

At first, the task seemed fairly mundane, beginning to feel more like he was tidying up rather than anything else. But Jack was always a tidy man, and so he found the task somewhat therapeutic, when he hasn’t batting at paintbrushes trying to recolour him. After several minutes, he’d gathered up a reasonably large pile of papers, but as he sifted through the stack, there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. They were merely some simple sketches, none of them complete, but some were pretty close. A few had been shaded partially, others just contained linework and a large amount just had a vague plan on the page with the general idea of the figures’ poses.

Jack was honestly quite surprised that so many sketches were abandoned in the room, but they started to make sense when he came across one in particular. The drawing was of a ballroom, it contained very little detail and he didn’t even know what some of the scrawled shapes were supposed to be, not until he spotted a canvas containing a half finished painting of the scene.

The leerie approached the canvas, holding up the sketched plan next to it and started to realise what he was looking at. The painting was gorgeous. It was of a ballroom with a grand staircase at the back, leading down from a balcony with ornate arches reaching the roof. Enormous windows shot what was left of the golden evening sunset into the scene in beams. And although the lighting hadn’t been completed, a half finished chandelier hung in the middle, currently only illuminating a group in the centre. 5 women in lilac gowns all stood around a figure that hadn’t yet been painted, but they seemed to all be rather smitten with whoever it was going to be.

Jack was rather impressed with it. Even though it still needed some work before it was complete, the work-in-progress was still gorgeous enough that he would happily hang it on his wall back home in its current state. He would’ve admired it for longer if he had the chance, but at that moment one of the brushes had once again returned to his hip to try to paint his jacket.

Returning the plan back to the pile he held and shifting that to his right arm, his left was then free to push at the brush. He attempted to swat at it to get in to leave him alone, but this time it was much more determined. So when Jack knocked it away, it shot right back to him and carried on.

“Come on, mate. Go finish your paintings and leave me alone.” The little brush furiously kept at it, totally distracting Jack from the canvas, where the five women were no longer looking at the unfinished section, but at him.

“Seriously, now. Off-” Jack’s train off thought was cut short as something roughly grabbed his wrist, causing him to drop the papers he’d gathered. Looking back at the canvas, he was met with the face of one of the women, which was much closer than it was before. And then he realised that it was her hand that had grabbed him. Her long digits reached all the way around his wrist, touching her thumb on the other side. Her hand was quite clearly made entirely of paint, but that didn’t stop it from having the strength of a real woman. More paint was oozing from her vice like grip and beginning to cover his arm, but then he realised something much more concerning. There was five in the painting. So where were the rest?

Suddenly, four pairs of arms started grabbing him: his jacket, his arms, his collar, his other wrist. One even had her hand at the back of his neck. The four of them all started easing his body forwards while the fifth kept pulling him towards the canvas. Their hands all oozed paint and were beginning to cover him completely. Even the little paint brush was helping out, rapidly covering a rather large portion at his hip.

“Uh, Mary! A little help!” He couldn’t keep the panic out of his voice no matter how hard he tried, but his fear seemed to very quickly catch Mary’s attention across the room. Her eyes widened in horror as she dropped her own papers and raced over to him, only to be shoved away by the four outside of the painting.

Jack was struggling to fight back as the river of paint below him also began to reach up and coat his legs in its sludge. And as he was fighting to avoid losing balance on the slippery surface, it made it all the more easy to push him right up against the canvas, where the fifth woman pulled his arm fully into the image. Jack yelped at the strange sensation and began to thrash in their grip even more, but his constant moving made it easier to knock him even closer.

“Let go of him this instant!” Mary bellowed as she attempted to direct one of the women away with her umbrella while she physically dragged another back. The group obliged, in a way. The two that she’d been dealing with let go and turned to her, each taking an arm and dragging her away, leaving her unable to do nothing more than frantically protest as she watched the other three fully drag Jack into the painting.

“No!” There was nothing she could do. And once the three were done, the two at her side threw Mary to the floor and raced back to return to their painted world.

Mary picked herself up, ignoring the state her dress, and rushed over to the canvas, her heart racing. The painting had been completed, now having Jack at the centre of the group, posed with his back to Mary as he interacted with them. Her fingers delicately raised to press against the painting to find it completely dry.

“Oh, Jack, what am I to do now?” Of course, she got no answer. But that didn’t stop her from waiting, hoping that he might be able to fight back and free himself. And maybe he did, but she didn’t get a chance to see, as a slot in the wall opened up and the canvas was lifted into the shoot, taking it elsewhere in the house.

First the children and now this?! Mary hated the thought that she was attached to Jack, or anyone for that matter. She never wanted to get sentimental in her line of work. So to ignore the fact that her heart had sunk to her stomach to digest, she instead let herself fume. She was going to find that painting, and she was going to find the children. And once they were all together again, she was going to march them right over to Richard and he was going to put a stop to this madness, repair the damage he’d caused, and this time, she would make damn sure that he kept things in the orderly way she set. And it was going happen even if it killed her.

“Richard,” she muttered, “you better have a phenomenally good explanation for all of this.”


	4. The Feral Beasts

“I didn’t think I’d be bored here, but I’m getting REALLY bored.” John had to agree with his sister. They couldn’t really say how long they’d been wandering, because at this point, they didn’t really know. John had tried counting to pass the time, but in his trance, he found he was skipping numbers and losing count. He’d gotten to 1,863 before he gave up. Though with the amount he’d skipped, it was actually more like 1,676. Annabel had kept herself busy leaving a petal trail from their flower, often plucking many at once to spell out a message with them. But still, it was really starting to get dull.

Since the greenhouse, they hadn’t seen anything particularly interesting; the closest they’d come was a room full of sports equipment, that, unfortunately, didn’t seem to be anything more lively than that. The twins eventually got to a point where they wished they’d stayed there and played a few games to have something else to do, but the need to keep moving urged them ever onwards, only ever stopping so they could take a break in one the many lounges (they could’ve sworn they’d seen at least 20) to rest their aching feet.

“Well how about we leave a bigger message with the petals? It’s better than just walking.” As much as Annabel wanted to ignore John’s idea in favour of literally anything else, she had to agree that it was the best they could do unless they got lucky with the next room. This led them to stop in a rather creepy room full of taxidermy animals of all kinds. However, the two were unfazed by this and actually relished the challenge to make the dark, stuffy room a little brighter.

“J-O-H-N-A-N-D-A-N-N-A-B-E-L-W-E-R-E-H-E-R-E.” John quickly got to work arranging the petals into their message on the grubby stone floor, while Annabel knelt beside him, plucking the petals he needed and setting them down in a small pile at his side. He spelt it out in large letters to the point that, when he finished, the two had a fair amount of difficulty getting around the petals without brushing them away. In the end, John and Annabel jumped over them, but upon landing, found they needed to fix the first half of the message to make it legible again.

They were so busy with the letters that they didn’t actually notice the great big stuffed bear behind them start moving. Sauntering up behind them in a curious but relaxed way, he sniffed the children, coming so close, his acorn fur almost brushed along the back of their necks. His bright black eyes lit up as he reared back to stand on his hind legs, swaying this way and that. And with a bellowing roar, he announced,

“WE HAVE GUESTS!” The room erupted to life as the various animals began to cheer and chirp, squeak and squawk, bark and bleat, hiss and howl. Creatures from all four corners of the world and the space inbetween began to rearrange themselves into groups, pulling what seemed to be homemade instruments (or whatever was possible without opposable thumbs) and began to strike up a beat, leaving John and Annabel to stare in awe as their heart rates returned to normal after they overcame the initial shock.

“I can’t be the only one who’s finding this day just a bit difficult.” John muttered. “I’m starting to get this banging in my head.”

“I think that’s the gorilla with the drums.” Came Annabel’s response. Despite the twins’ reactions, the animals were hardly put off. The bear who’d been inspecting them (and seemed to be the ringleader of the group) pulled out a top hat, plonked it on his head, and shrugged on a fine dinner jacket, before hopping into the centre of the room- brushing away the twins’ message, much to their disappointment.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Visitor 1 and Visitor 2! Welcome to the best day of your lives! I present to you, The Feral Beasts!”

As soon as he finished speaking, an enormous rhino barrelled into the middle of the room. With a flick of his tail, he twirled around a microphone, adjusted the bow tie around his horns with a shake of his head, and in a smooth baritone voice, began to sing for the twins,

“Her bulbous profile and pungent odour, that sunken chin and busy motor, a tremulous scowl crosses her flaring lips, from her cup, rum she gulps, while others sip.“ John and Annabel gazed at each other in confusion. This had all happened a little too fast, but at this point in their journey, they couldn’t really say they were surprised by their situation. And who cared? The song was pretty good, so why not take a moment to enjoy it? They clearly put a lot of effort into it, judging by the dressed up monkey coming to join the rhino at the microphone,

“Her mouth opens wide in a hideous grin, displays shocking tooth decay within, some teeth rotten, others chipped, best she keeps her lips tightly zipped.” They leant in together, harmonising as the key changed,

“Abruptly she emits a belch and a fart, as she starts steering her grocery cart, wildly it careens, as customers swoon, wuddya expect from a drunken baboon? I said wuddya expect from a drunken baboon? What do you expect from a drunken babooooooooooooooooon?” The singers fell about laughing, leaving the twins staring in bewilderment. But they knew a good song when they heard it, so, despite their confusion, they began a ferocious applause as the performers took a bow.

“That was amazing!”

“Thank you little miss.” The rhino was beaming with pride.

“We weren’t expecting any of that, but that was a really fun song. Did you write it yourselves?” The rhino would’ve probably blushed if he wasn’t a rhino, but before he could respond, another voice chimed in instead.

“No! I wrote the song and then he changed some words and made it into a stupidly childish ditty.” The twins looked over to where an older looking lion was sulking in the corner, clearly not a fan of the theatricalities of his companions. He’d practically hidden behind a few crates, cringing the whole while and only now making himself known, though still keeping his distance.

“Well your version was so dark and gloomy, all about a feral baboon. Honestly, it was pretty racist.”

“Well your version isn’t much better,” he spat back, “and anyway, why do you always take the credit? I wrote the original and you’re just parodying it.”

“Because I’m the one responsible for the parody, which is what we’re performing. And anyway, your song is hardly a comforting welcome. They’ll just think you want to devour them!”

“But you tell people it’s your own original song! You never mention me! You’re stealing my work, ruining it, and then never letting me share the superior version!”

“Oh, why don’t you go back to sulking in your box?!”

“Guys! Calm down.” The feuding pair looked to where the twins stood, both far too tired to deal with such squabbling.

“You can’t just insult each other and think that’ll solve anything.” Annabel started, “Rhino, you need to give him some of the credit and let him perform his version. You wouldn’t be where you are without Lion, so you should respect him and his work.” The rhino’s head fell in shame as his eyes became fixed on a- apparently very interesting- spot on the floor.

“And you,” John added, looking to the lion, who was looking rather smug at having someone agreeing with him, “you need to accept that not everyone has your taste in music and there’s nothing wrong with liking different things. If he likes your song enough that he’d put the effort in to make a ‘happy version’” he said, making air quotations, “then you should be happy to have inspired him.” The lion seemed to get the message, and he too was looking a little awkward, retreating slightly behind his boxes.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Annabel added.

“So can you be friends, or are you going to keep fighting over something so silly?” The lion and rhino’s eyes met briefly, before darting away. In the end, much to everyone’s surprise, it was the lion who made the first move, skulking over to the rhino before plonking himself down at his side.

“I’m sorry I insulted your song.” The words came out fast and slightly mumbled, as the big cat only briefly managed to look him in the eye for a few fleeting seconds. But despite this, it seemed to be enough for the rhino, who responded in a similar manner,

“I’m sorry I took all the credit. I respect your work.”

“And I yours.” The two took a moment before they were able to look at each other again, and for a brief moment even managed a smile, though they both shuffled slightly where they stood, eager to move on and forget the whole thing.

John and Annabel were quite proud of themselves for it. It’s not often that they were the ones settling arguments. Being twins, they were normally the ones starting them, so this was pretty new. If only their father was there to see it. But unfortunately, the peace wouldn’t last, as the rhino turned to walk away, coughing between words,

“But we all know mine is better.” It was almost too quick to catch, but of course, it was just their luck that the lion heard, and apparently, he wasn’t going to stand for that.

“Excuse me? We all know mine is better. The original always is.”

“Yeah, but mine is more popular.”

“Only because you never let me perform it!”

“Because it’s not as good.” The other animals watching started taking sides at this point, and the children could only watch as things began to fall apart.

“You wouldn’t have a song if it weren’t for me!”

“And nobody would know you had a song at all if it weren’t for me.” The room was divided, as an equal amount stood with each opponent. Before they knew it, everyone was pitching in with their own opinions and remarks, bringing the place to resemble a feral zoo rather than a band of intelligent magical creatures. Monkeys started banging on the crates as the wolves started howling, trying to drown out each other’s arguments. The bear and gorilla had began using intimidation to make their case, standing on their back legs and making various roaring howls. The birds screeched, the reptiles groaned, cats hissed and scratched, whilst the snakes threatened to bite. Louder. Louder. Louder. Until finally, it all blew up.

Lion launched at rhino. And that’s all it took.

An all out brawl erupted as all creatures, great and small, flung themselves at each other and used every wild tactic they had to offer to rip into their taxidermy bodies and wrench the stuffing out. Harrowing screams filled the room as the twins were forced to dive to safety, away from where the bear had launched several monkeys in a fit of rage.

“We have to stop them!” Annabel shouted over the din, “They’ll tear each other apart!” John was silent for a moment, before an idea hit him. Frantically, he rummaged through his pocket before triumphantly holding out a package made of leaves. When he unfolded them to reveal the two strips of bee stingers, he grinned devilishly.

“I bet they’ll stop for these.” Annabel smirked, taking one of the strips while John took the other. Carefully, so as not to hurt themselves, they hurried to the group where John climbed on top of one of the lion’s crates and shouted.

“Oi! You better stop fighting or we’ll sting you!” As they expected, they were ignored. The beasts continued to fight as if they weren’t being watched. So much for trying to impress their guests. Oh well,they couldn’t say they weren’t warned.

Immediately, John hopped down and, alongside Annabel, began plucking stingers from the strip and jabbing them in the quarrelling animals. Starting with the lion and rhino, each one gave a yelp as the pair dashed between legs, too quickly to be noticed or caught. By the time any of them had spotted them, it was too late. Even when the bear tried to pick up Annabel to make her stop, he was met with a stinger on the nose and he dropped her immediately.

“Ow! What was that for?” He complained.

“It seemed to be the only way to get you all to stop fighting.”

“Yeah,” John added, “are you really going to tear yourselves apart, over a song that barely anyone has heard?” The animals looked at each other, their anger slowly dissipated as they realised how silly it all was. And from the looks of things, they were actually ashamed of their actions.

“Honestly, maybe you should just do something else. You could make a dance that everyone can be involved in.” They looked between each other, awkwardly nodding to one another at Annabel’s words. “So can we finally move on now? We can’t stay here forever.” They were met with more quiet nods as the animals began to disperse, heading to various places around the room to busy themselves with anything to distract them from what just happened.

The twins sighed, never so appreciative of some peace and quiet. They were certainly glad they wouldn’t have to stay much longer, as the constant shouting was starting to give them a headache. They’d been lost in the house for so long, without making progress, that they were gradually being driven mad by the monotony. The animals were a nice change from things, but shouting and petty arguments were not something they wished to deal with for a moment longer. Now that it had fallen mostly silent, they were quite excited to get going and have some peace away from the boisterous shouting.

It was actually thanks to this peace and quiet, that they could hear the door opening behind them. They might have otherwise missed it, and the new visitor may have backed away from the door upon seeing the brawl, had they arrived only moments earlier. But thanks to their rather lucky timing, when John and Annabel turned around, they were met with a sight like no other. A horse sized giraffe, with longer hair than it probably should have had, had proudly marched into the room. And when it lowered its neck to sniff at the floor, something they both found rather odd, it made it much easier to see the rider, beaming like the sun itself.

“GEORGIE!”


	5. The Weeping Cherry Tree

Mary’s face fell. She would never admit it out loud. But in the deepest depths of her heart and soul, she was sorely disappointed to enter a new room only to find it void of life.

She had always been particularly confident in particularly absurd situations. They were her specialty. And it was quite an easy thing to fake if she just so happened to be having a tough time on the day, since, chances were, she’d be more confident than any of her companions. However, those were adventures that she had planned. Those were trips where things just worked out how she wanted them to. This... well, this was entirely different.

She didn’t like to fail. But Mary couldn’t deny it happened every so often. She was always good at hiding that sort of thing and fixing it all before anyone noticed, but the fear and shame was always strong. It would always eat away at her heart and occupy her mind completely. It’s how she remembered that she was only practically perfect. Those feelings weren’t something you could forget in a hurry. But this particular situation was a first.

She wasn’t used to things going this badly wrong. She’d certainly never lost anyone on her excursions. Mary was always completely on top of everything of that sort. Hell, she once took a group of nine 3 to 10 year olds on a trip to Timbuktu without any help. But of course it would be the Banks children she’d lose. Their parents were infamous for running away all the time. But she had soon put a stop to that. Still, it seemed it was a banks family trait. One she wished she’d been more prepared for.

But it hadn’t been their disappearance that worried her so much: it was Jack’s. To have no idea where he could be or how to help, had made her sick to her stomach. And if that was the kind of danger you could expect from a simple art studio, then lord only knows what the other rooms could be like. She didn’t like that they were out there all alone. And all because of her.

Mary sighed as she took in her surroundings. A serene pool filled the room from wall to wall, with only a small bank at the door she had entered through and one at the exit on the other side. A small island sat in the middle, that was mostly made of rocks, but seemed to have enough soil to support the large twisting tree that sat upon it. Pink blossoms had burst to life, some even dropping to sail on the peaceful water below, which seemed to be infinitely deep and infinitely dark. She seriously hoped the lighting of the room didn’t reflect the actual time, as the sky on the walls and ceiling looked ever so real. Their dark hue with speckled stars tried to tell her that the night had drawn in, but she had been sure they’d only been inside for a few hours.

Feeling the wind clutch her spine, Mary decided it would probably be best to get back inside as soon as possible. The sudden temperature drop had seriously caught her off guard, and she could only hope that the others were smart enough to avoid venturing outside.

The water had been perfectly still, only ever slightly rippled by a gentle gust of wind every so often. But when she approached the water’s edge, it was greatly disturbed by a sudden rush of petals sailing from where they had fallen near the tree, to provide a bridge for her. Pressing her foot carefully against them, she found they were buoyant and perfectly capable of taking her weight. So without another thought, she stepped onto the platform fully, and allowed herself to be carried to the central island.

She couldn’t help but take a moment to admire the weeping cherry tree before her. Taking a seat on its enormous roots, she reached up to pull a nearby branch down to her level, carefully caressing the delicate petals blooming in clumps. They reminded her so much of Cherry Tree Lane: the day the Banks family had been able to go to the spring fair. The trees seemed to have known the day would be special, and had waited to bloom despite snow leaving the lane long before then. She had expected to leave them that day. Afterall, they got their house back and were closer as a family than ever before. And yet something about them had left Mary thinking she’d better stay to make sure their changes lasted. Despite her feelings about sentimentality, she couldn’t help but feel a little lost herself when they weren’t there.

Sighing, Mary let go of the branch, letting it swing back to its rightful place in the canopy. She had to admit, she was really regretting bringing them on such an errand. She would normally have every second Tuesday off, so she could do her odd jobs around the world. Ever since she’d figured out how to overcome her ‘turtle day’, she’d taken advantage of the new perspective to complete the most awkward magical problems. But it seemed as if the day had got the best of her this time. Why on Earth she’d thought it was a good idea to take Jack and the children with her, she’d never know. But when dear old Richard sent that letter, the children had pleaded to come along, insisting (after they’d seen the letter’s return address) that Richard didn’t live far from them and they’d be fine. They had promised to behave and stay close and to not cause trouble, and she gave in. She’d never know why. Hell, she even let Jack come along when he offered them a lift, knowing full well that the house would give them difficulty even if it hadn’t gotten this bad. So of course, surprise surprise, they’d all gotten separated and now they were all who-knows-where doing who-knows-what and probably getting themselves hurt in the process. It wasn’t safe here. Why did she bring them?

This was all her fault.

.

.

.

.

.

Buzz buzz!

Mary’s eyes shot to the tangled branches that draped around her.

Buzz buzz!

Her gaze darted up, scanning the area until she spotted the source. A large bees’ nest was hanging from the trunk, with plenty of bees whizzing in an out, as it seemed a large group had all returned more-or-less at once. They busied themselves, completely ignoring Mary sat below them for several minutes, before one bee noticed their visitor and froze. He sat on a branch watching her, though Mary didn’t notice. Being a relatively small creature with even smaller eyes meant it would be very difficult for someone so much bigger to notice you staring. But the other bees noticed him quite easily, gradually coming to join him to see what he was looking at. The group progressively grew until almost the entire nest had crowded together to watch the nanny. Though, by now, it was safe to say she could see them all. A mass of black and yellow buzzing balls of fuzz would be quite hard for even a blind person to miss.

“You know if you want to speak to me, you can. It’s quite rude to stare.” The group were taken aback to see a woman attempting to talk to insects, and even more so that she seemed to be trying to discipline them. In a flurry of confusion, they all looked to each other, in the hopes that one of them would know what to do. It was only after a rather painful twenty seconds and Mary raising a brow at them, that the queen of the hive finally came out to see what was going on.

“What are you all milling about for? There’s plenty of work to do. This house only has one hive you know. Come on! Off! Get back out there!” The Queen rather snappishly dispersed the crowd and sent them all about their various duties, before turning to deal with with Mary.

“And what brings you here, Miss...?”

“Poppins. Mary Poppins?” The poor queen seemed to have a mini heart attack upon hearing the name, before spluttering,

“Poppins?! Mary Poppins?! The same Mary Poppins who managed to wrangle this house and get Richard to stop being such a prat?!”

“Language!” Mary warned, “but yes, that’s me.” It seemed the bees weren’t such a big fan of Richard’s insane house, but considering they had to overcome the headache of navigating the place everyday to pollinate all the flowers, it was no wonder.

“Please tell me you’re going to get that man under control! It’s getting unbearable for the hive to manage all the flowers. It’s taking so much longer to get everything pollinated, and I haven’t seen Ozzie in almost a month!”

“Yes, that’s what I’m going to try to fix. But I also need to do something else.” The queen looked puzzled, trying to figure out what else might need fixing, “I came here with four others, but we all got separated. I need to find them before I can leave.”

“Well, I may be able to help. Who were you with?”

“Three are children. There’s the twins, John and Annabel, and their younger brother, Georgie. I also came with a man called Jack, a lamplighter. But he was pulled into a painting that got sent somewhere, and I’ve no idea where he was taken.” The queen zipped into the hive for a moment, conferring with her workers for a minute, before coming back out.

“Twins you say? And is their brother blonde?”

“Why yes, yes he is.”

“Apparently the others have seen them around quite a bit. But the three of them managed to find each other not too long ago.” Mary couldn’t mask the smile that graced her features even if she tried. She felt a hundred times better knowing that they weren’t all out on their own.

“That’s brilliant! And what about Jack?”

“Well, nobody’s seen him yet. But if he’s in a painting, like you said, then it would only make sense that he’d be presented in the gallery.” The thought that there would be a gallery hadn’t actually crossed her mind until that moment. Purely because, last time she visited, Richard simply didn’t have one. But it seemed like now he’d installed new rooms, he finally got around to having a dedicated place to display his art. It wasn’t the best possible situation, but Jack was safe, so at least she had that.

“I’m afraid I can’t exactly direct you to where they are, the rooms move far too quickly for that now. But I can spare a few workers to go out and keep an eye on everybody for you if you’d like?”

“That would be wonderful,” Mary smiled, “thank you.”

“Not a bother! Anything for you. Just make sure Richard sorts all this out so we can go back to doing our jobs properly. That’s all I need!”

Feeling rather more invigorated than when she entered the room, Mary shot to her feet. She was ready now. She could do this. Just as long as the others were alright, she was completely capable of moving on. Infact, knowing that the kids had beaten the odds and found each other filled her with hope. Surely, if they could do it without having ever been there before, then she could do it too. It may have been her fault that they were in this mess to begin with, but she was going to make sure she was the one to get them back out of it.

Saying her farewells, she stepped to the other side of the island, where the petals formed another platform, and carried her away to the other door across the room. She swiftly strode onto the bank, pausing to look back and wave to the hive, who had all gathered on the branch to watch her leave, much to the queen’s dismay. Upon turning back to the door, Mary took a deep breath. If the children had managed it, then she could too. And without a moment of hesitation, she swing the door open and stepped through to the next room.


	6. I’m Not Paint

Where was he? The ballroom had seemed real enough aside from the fourth wall. A tunnel? Was that what he was supposed to be looking at? Or had been looking at. His feet had long since stopped working, making it impossible to get a better look. His spine had frozen, trapping him in a far too rigid position that made every damn breath feel like he was inhaling black treacle, leaving him gasping for an explanation. What was happening?! He couldn’t remember when he turned away from the wall, but whatever the reason had been, he was certainly glad he did. It had looked like the whole room was plummeting into an abyss, and he couldn’t bear to watch for even a second longer, even though the slight angle of his head offered him a portion of a view. He faced the women accompanying him. They weren’t scared. They weren’t even phased. Hell, they hadn’t even moved! He was suddenly the only living thing in whatever hell this was.

The whole world was banging. Again and again. Louder. Louder. Louder and louder until it was almost too much too bear. No. It was too much. Clattering around wherever he was was driving him insane. Bashing and breaking to a point he was sure he wouldn’t survive much longer. Something was bound to puncture into this safe space and make him wish he had never stepped foot in this bloody house in the first place. But there was no escape. He had fallen completely still. He looked relaxed. He looked like he was greeting the women. He looked like he was having a cheerful conversation. But he was far from calm. Inside his head, he screamed and fought against the cold grasp that seemed to fully encompass his whole brain and pull, seizing control and terminating any thought before they could form. He was gradually going numb to everything except the feeling of his whole body losing control. Losing its life. He’d be gone any minute. Lost from time and forever fated to be merely a brain dead statue. No. No! NO!

LET GO OF ME!

There was silence.

Something had listened.

Or maybe it was just a coincidence.

But whatever the case, they were no longer falling. A mechanical click and the whir of gears echoed throughout the chamber, before pushing them forward into a light. The fourth wall now revealed a whole new world. A world where paintings adorned every inch of space. Was it a gallery? He only wished he could move. But that wouldn’t be possible. No no. It was far too late for that. It was too late for him to even be able to think.

The paint had already dried.

Ten minutes went by, uncounted, before the door was swung open.

“Come on. We can take a break in here.” What nobody could’ve expected, was that a very specific and very lucky sequence of rooms and passages would just so happen to lead three young children to the exact room they didn’t know they were even looking for. They couldn’t have done it again if they tried.

“Good. I’m tired.”

“You’ve literally been riding your giraffe the whole time.” John commented, “How are you tired?” Georgie yawned atop his steed, before rubbing his eyes.

“I’m mean I’m sleepy.” Annabel seemed to agree, nodding and turning to John,

“We’ve been here for ages. It probably is quite late. We might have to start thinking about finding a quiet and comfortable room to sleep in.” Annbel was correct in her assumption; unknown to them, it had actually been several hours since they arrived that afternoon, and it was actually coming round to 9 o’clock. Their father was sure to be worried, but they couldn’t really do much about that. “Who knows, Mary might have fixed everything by the time we wake up.”

“Let’s hope.” Taking in their surroundings, they seemed to be in a gallery. With Annabel’s idea, Georgie assumed there was little point in taking a break now, like they’d originally planned, and that they were going to go find somewhere to better accommodate 3 children and a giraffe to sleep. But while his siblings discussed the plan, Georgie couldn’t help but inspect the paintings.

Some of them seemed to be alive; their figures dancing gracefully or chatting to one another, sometimes even to the people from other paintings entirely. The twins seemed to have gotten quite used to seeing things moving that definitely shouldn’t in a logical world, but being so young, Georgie still couldn’t help but stare in wonder.

The gallery itself was certainly overpopulated. The walls seemed to go up and up for miles, and every inch was covered in canvases. Georgie thought he might have spotted a sliver of exposed wallpaper, but he was actually just mistaken, having momentarily been thrown off by a rather unusually coloured frame. Infact, none of the frames seemed to match each other at all. Every single one was a strange new colour that wasn’t ever repeated on another frame. Faces and faces and faces were watching him, but considering that most of them were caught up in their own conversations, they only either ignored him or quietly observed.

While many of the paintings seemed to be alive and moving, many of them were completely still, aswell. And this was probably the only reason he noticed this particular canvas in the first place. There was nothing to distract from a rather unusual aspect of it. An A1 landscape painting of an elegant ballroom hung proudly, depicting a man talking to a group of women wearing lilac ball gowns. But it was the man that looked odd. At a quick glance, it looked fine. He had his back turned to the viewer to face the women, seemingly reaching out to take one of their hands. And yet, despite being at the centre of the interactions, he looked the most out of place; as if someone had taken a photograph of a normal man, stuck it to the canvas and tried to paint over it to blend him in with the rest of the image and give him a fancy black suit. But he still stood out a mile. Infact, the more Georgie looked at him, the more he looked like,

“JACK?!” The name alone was enough to catch the twins’ attention. They rushed straight to his side, but were left rather confused to see their favourite leerie wasn’t actually standing anywhere in the room.

“What are you talking about?” John asked, “He’s not here.” Georgie pointed to the painting, adamant that the man couldn’t be anyone else. And as the twins looked, they two couldn’t help but be surprised by the uncanny resemblance he bore.

“So somebody painted him? Or is this just some sort of coincidence? It can’t actually be Jack. It’s just a painting. It’s probably been here much longer than we have.” Annabel’s confusion was quickly interrupted by a new voice coming from behind them,

“Actually, that one’s only just arrived a few minutes ago.” Startled by the new addition to their conversation, the three of them whipped around to see an enormous painting of a gentleman who appeared to be from the 1600s. It’s huge size meant the man was about eight and a half feet tall, with a small plaque on the golden frame stating the man was called Lord Robert Teaside, the original owner of the house. He appeared to be the oldest painting in the gallery.

Georgie turned triumphantly to Annabel,

“See! So it could be Jack.”

“So what are you three chattering on about, anyway?” The Lord asked.

“We’ve been looking for our friends. And the man in this painting looks just like Jack.” The Lord inspected the painting from his own frame, making it hard to get a good look at the finer details of the image. But he’d seen enough,

“I think I can see what’s going on here. It looks like they were keen to finish the painting as quickly as possible. They’ve cheated and pulled him into it. You can tell he’s not one of them.” The children stared in total shock,

“You mean, that’s not just a painting of Jack, it actually IS Jack?!”

“It would appear so.” Georgie was the most panicked of the three upon hearing that news, almost bursting into tears at the possibility that Jack could be trapped. Gillie, who’d been quietly standing off to the side, trotted over, nuzzling his face into his neck to provide some comfort. John and Annabel simply stared in shock. Why would they do that to him?

“So why are the other paintings moving, but this one isn’t?”

“I’m afraid they can only move as they get old and start to wear away. Hence why I can move. But unfinished paintings can move freely. That’s how they take people. I’m afraid if you want to free your friend, you’re going to have to go in there and get him yourself.”

“And how do we do that?”

“Climb in.” They were rather confused by what he meant, and when Annabel pressed her hand against the painting, she couldn’t figure out how she’d get in. Her fingers merely brushed against the layers on paint. It all seemed impossible, but of course that word had never existed in the Banks household since Mary arrived. And when she pressed a little harder, her hand pushed right through. Not through the canvas- the painting itself was completely unharmed- but her hand went into the actual image. It was a strange sensation, causing her skin to feel as though it was fizzing. Ignoring the odd feeling, she kept reaching in, however, she couldn’t reach Jack. The perspective had him standing several metres away from them, leaving Annabel with no other option.

Taking the painting off the wall, she turned to the old painting watching them.

“Will we be able to get back out?” He chuckled,

“I wouldn’t worry. You’re not made of paint. You’ll be just fine.” It was exactly what she hoped he’d say. So without hesitation, she set the painting on the floor, propped up against the wall, and once again, pressed her hand against the image until she was able to push through and crawl inside.

John and Georgie stayed back, watching their sister crawl through, and once she was inside, stared in total awe as she wandered through the image, looking as if she herself was painted to be a part of it.

“Are you ok?” John asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. It looks really weird in here. There’s no real light, just colours and shading to look like it.” The lack of real lighting made it quite difficult to judge were she was actually standing, and it certainly made it a surprisingly long distance to reach Jack and the group. They were much further away than they had originally appeared. The floor didn’t feel at all solid, leaving Annabel hoping beyond hope that the paint wouldn’t give way. Every step felt like she was squashing down several layers of the stuff, and it wasn’t a particularly pleasant feeling.

When she finally arrived at Jack, he was still frozen. But he stood out from everything else even more than he had before. While the other women were definitely just paintings and looked somewhat 2D, Jack still looked like a real person. It appeared they’d painted over his body and clothes to make him look like he was part of the image, but patches were missing or had dripped and smudged as he’d moved (whenever that had been possible for him), and of course, he was the only one aside from Annabel, who was a real 3D person. He wasn’t just shaded to look real, he actually was. Real light from the gallery that was beaming in, was actually making a difference to him, casting light on only certain parts of his body and leaving shadows elsewhere, while everything else in the room got an even coverage. The whole thing was truly bizarre, but that didn’t stop Annabel from trying to free him.

“Jack! Jaaaaack!” He didn’t respond. She tugged his jacket, seeing that it still had fabric underneath the black paint. Hopefully it was wash out. “Come on Jack, we need to go.” Again, he remained frozen. Looking him over, she tried to decide what to do next. She herself had had a few moments where she thought an adventure with Mary poppins was a dream, and had pinched herself to check. Maybe that would work to wake up Jack. She was tempted to try pulling his hair, as it would certainly be the best way to shock him awake, and it also seemed that they hadn’t tried to paint his hair completely, having given up partway into the hairline. But unfortunately, she wasn’t quite tall enough to reach. So instead she turned to his hands. One was outstretched to one of the ladies in the group, however, there wasn’t really enough space to push between them and reach his hand. Luckily for her, his other hand was behind his back, easily accessible for Annabel.

She attempted to pinch him, but found she couldn’t easily do it through the thick layer of paint coating his skin. After peeling some away to expose the heel of his right hand, she pinched him as hard as she could, digging her rather short nails in as far as possible.

He flinched! He definitely flinched.

It took another few moments for him to come to his senses, but soon enough, Jack blinked and turned around, smiling as soon as he saw her. Annabel couldn’t contain her excitement and dived at him for a hug. She’d never been so happy to see him.

“Annabel? How did you find me?”

“We found you in the gallery. You looked too real compared to the rest of the painting so it was easy to recognise you.” It was at this point that Jack spotted John and Georgie outside the painting, looking as equally excited as Annabel.

“This is great!” John cheered, “Now we just have to find Mary and we’ll all be back together again.”

Annabel giggled at Jack’s side, before taking his hand and pulling him along to the edge of the painting. Since even Annabel had to crawl through the canvas, Jack was definitely going to have some difficulty getting through, but the opening was still large enough that he was sure he could manage. But once Jack tried to follow Annabel out, they realised the size of the exit wasn’t the problem.

As soon as his hand reached back out into the real world, his fingers started to burn and fall apart as the paint dripped away. With a hiss of pain, he retracted his hand, holding it close while the burning sensation subsided. The paint reformed into the shape of his hand, but Jack could only stare in horror. It seemed as if the paint had been gradually replacing his body. He dreaded to think how much of his body was already gone, or how much it would hurt to crawl out of the painting completely. There was no way he could do that.

As the realisation hit the children that they couldn’t get him out, they turned back to Lord Teaside for answers.

“You said he’d be able to get out!” Teaside raised his hands as he tried to defend himself,

“I thought he could! We don’t exactly have visitors very often, nevermind ones that get trapped in paintings. I’m not exactly well versed in what to do with this sort of thing. I didn’t know that real people could be turned into paint. You may be surprised to know that that isn’t exactly common knowledge!”

“So what happens when I turn?” Teaside could hardly look at Jack. He was knelt of the floor to be able to see out, and he seemed to have a look as if he knew the answer already.

“I honestly don’t know for certain. But I’d guess you’ll be like all the other paintings. You’ll be frozen for years before you can even start to regain movement. You’ll be trapped forever.” Jack fell silent, looking away from the children and back to the women behind him. He glanced over each one, finding it quite hard to imagine him becoming like one of them. And the thought of going back through the process of freezing made him want to throw up. He needed to get back out into the real world and see real people, and feel things that weren’t just a coloured paste.

The children were not nearly as solemn as Jack, however, they were instead on the verge of hysteria.

“Well can we stop it?! How long do we have?!” John asked frantically.

“I don’t know! I’ve never been able to explore this house, so I honestly can’t say if they’ll be anyone in the other rooms who can help you. There might be or there might not be. I don’t know. And I can’t even begin to guess how long you have. All I can suggest, is that you go to Richard. He’s your best option. He might be able to fix it himself or take you to someone else who can, but I don’t know for sure. I’m sorry I can’t help you any more than that, but this hasn’t actually happened before. I don’t know what can be done about it, if anything.” Lord Teaside sighed in defeat. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Jack said. “Mary’s somewhere around here, so she might know what to do. We just have to keep looking.” His optimism seemed to be just what they needed, as all three Banks children managed to calm down a little.

“Jack’s right.” Annabel agreed. “She can fix anything. We just need to be quick. Come on.” Without another word, she helped Georgie back onto Gillie’s back, before passing the canvas up to him to carry. “He need to keep going for as long as possible and ask in every room we go to if anyone can help. It’ll be fine.” John sighed,

“I hope you’re right.” He turned back to Teaside, “Thanks for the help. We’ll find a way to fix this.”

“I hope you do. Good luck.” With some difficulty, both Annabel and John joined Georgie on Gillie’s back, figuring it’d be faster than if the twins were left walking. It was a struggle to get comfortable and position Jack so he could actually see what was going on. But after a short struggle, they were finally ready. And with a bark, Gillie set off to the next room to begin their search for help. There was no time to waste.


	7. The “Forest”

Determination is a great thing, isn’t it? It’s enough to motivate you to work harder, go further, do more, and it was enough for the children to keep moving for several hours. However, exhaustion is a stronger force. So when it finally hit 1 o’clock, the children were well and truly worn out.

As they started to feel particularly weary, they had started looking for a comfortable room to stop. However, it seemed they were out of luck, because once they reached a room that appeared to be a small forest, they gave up.

“Can’t we just stop here? I’m tired.” Georgie’s whining had gotten to an unbearable point, made even worse by the fact that everyone else was equally exhausted. John let out a frustrated huff, attempting to stifle a yawn as he rubbed his eyes

“Fine. I don’t think we’ll find anywhere better for now, anyway. Let’s just sleep here.”

“But won’t we be cold?” Annabel countered, “We should at least find a room that’s actually indoors.” Annabel wanted to stop just as much as everyone else, but as a sudden chill clutched her spine, she knew they wouldn’t have a particularly restful sleep.

“I think we should just stop here.” Jack piped up, “The last few rooms have all been outdoors. We must be in some sort of garden area. And honestly, I think it’s going to take a while to find something in the main house.” The leerie was struggling to keep his eyes open, as his body had experienced an extra several hours all at once when he was trapped. For when he’d been put in a ballroom in the evening, he’d been made to experience the hours between the morning he was trapped and the evening the painting was set in all in a matter of seconds. So, by this point, he felt like he’d been awake for a week. “And besides,” he added, “Gillie seems to be struggling. He’s the one carrying us, so we can’t push him too far. He needs a break even more so than us.” Gillie responded to this with a deliberately pathetic ‘moo’ in a bid to win further sympathy from the children.

Considering Jack was the only adult with them, the children decided that he was probably right. And anyway, even if they changed their minds, Gillie had decided he was definitely done for the day. He flopped down on the floor, letting everyone get off, before curling up and going to sleep, without even once giving the children a chance to arrange something else.

Seeing this, Georgie decided to curl up next to Gillie, his felt body making him a much more comfortable pillow than the forest floor. John and Annabel quickly followed suit, figuring they’d be warmer if they huddled together. And while there wasn’t much they could do for Jack, they pulled his canvas to their side so he wouldn’t be left out completely. Inside the painting, Jack looked around the ballroom to see if there was anything better for him to sleep on, but found nothing. The tiled floor was his only option, and although it was pretty cold and uncomfortable, he was too tired to care, simply pulling his jacket tighter around himself.

The five of them were out like a light, even despite their less than ideal circumstances. And none of them noticed the wind breezing on by, or when it tried to rain for a few minutes, or the teeny tiny creepy crawly insects that would have caused a colossal panic at any other moment. They were just too exhausted. They hoped that Mary would be there when they woke up, but that was merely a dream. None of them would have ever admitted it, but after spending the whole day lost, they all secretly wondered if they’d ever make it out again.

But determination is a powerful thing. And for one lady in particular, she had more than ever.

Mary had come across several rooms with flower petals left behind on the floor. She even found a message in one that said ‘Please find us!’ It was undoubtedly the children, and she did her best to follow. Unfortunately, some rooms she came across had nothing in them, or the path they took was brushed away, leaving her guessing between several doors. But she wouldn’t give up. Mary pressed onwards, deciding that she didn’t need a break. Not when she was so close. But the house didn’t suddenly work in her favour. Real life wasn’t like that. Then again, real life isn’t normally considered to be full of magical moving rooms, talking bees and women who want to drag you inside a painting. They were certainly right when they said her family was crazy.

After another long search, Mary came to a stop in a rather large room. She didn’t want to stop unless she really had to, but the room she’d come across could be rather useful if it contained the right information. For Mary had walked right into a library. Shelves rose miles into the air, rammed to maximum capacity with books on everything you could need and twice as much on what you didn’t. Looking up, Mary couldn’t actually see the ceiling, the shelves stretched so far up, that from her view on the ground, they seemed to come closer together until they joined. The shelves and floor were the same dark mahogany, shined to perfection, though they made the room feel much darker and claustrophobic. Walking into the centre of the room, she could see a single green armchair, sat next to a round end table, containing a single, unnaturally bright, candle that was gently lighting the room, and a framed piece of paper with a question written in elegant calligraphy,

‘What would you like to know?’

Mary took a seat, taking a moment to smooth out her dress before she thought. She hadn’t seen this room before, but remembered a time when Richard had mentioned wanting to make it. He wanted a library with more information than in any other. Mary had asked how you would find anything, and Richard had said you’d simply ask a question and it would tell you the answer. She smiled fondly as she remembered the conversation. He’d been so passionate about it. It was nice to see him doing something with himself.

“Where is Richard?” Her question seemed to go unnoticed for several seconds, before she noticed a group of books across the room rattling away before one launched itself out and shot to lay in Mary’s lap, where it opened, fluttering through its pages before settling on the right one.

She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting to see. She hoped it would just be able to tell her where he was. But of course, what book would know something like that? The page was from a book containing plans for the house, and showed her a sketch of the central room. She had already assumed he’d be there, but she welcomed the confirmation. Closing the book, she silently glanced around the room, gathering the questions in her mind and filtering through for the ones she’d actually be able to get an answer to.

“Alright then. How can I stop the rooms from moving?” Mary, unfortunately, hadn’t been the one to shut down the rooms when she visited last. She had managed to convince Richard to do it. Which probably wasn’t the best idea, since he’d probably switched it back on as soon as she’d left. This time, she wanted to be sure that she could do it herself and make sure it couldn’t simply be switched back on.

Yet again, the room was quiet, until another book- this time from somewhere miles above her- came flying down and opened to the necessary page.

It showed the mechanism that caused everything to shift about so much without being noticed. Surprisingly, it was mostly done with everyday, real-world engineering methods. Of course it was imbued with a touch of magic to help it all along, but for the most part, it looked like it could have been made by any normal person. Though just because it wasn’t all magic, didn’t mean it was simple. The diagrams took up several pages to show everything that made it up, and the whole thing appeared a little too complex for her to be able to shut down properly. Her only option would be to break it, unless she could convince Richard to do it and never switch it on again. From the looks of it, the central mechanisms (that, in theory, should be in the same room as Richard) seemed to be mostly exposed as some kind of centrepiece to admire. That and the fact that it was mostly made up of gears and cogs, meant she would probably just need to jam it up. That should be enough for the machine to start breaking itself. And, if the book was correct about the type of magic he’d used, then that wouldn’t cause her any trouble.

Once she was satisfied, she thanked the book, letting it fly back to its rightful place on the shelf. The library seemed to have a lot of information on the house itself, she even spotted a whole section on one of the shelves, containing about 30 books on its history. Lord only knows who’d actually written them. It wouldn’t surprise her if it had been Richard himself. That man loved his books.

Suddenly, a new idea crossed her mind. If the library knew everything about the house, would it know where everyone else was?

“Where is Georgie?” She waited several seconds for the room to hear and a book to be chosen to fly out to her, but this time, nothing happened.

“Where is John?” Again, nothing.

“Where is Annabel?”

“Where is Jack?” Nothing around her moved. It seemed that those facts hadn’t yet been written down as she had hoped.

Sighing and taking out her pocket watch, she noted that it was twenty past two in the morning. They really needed to hurry up. Lord only knew what Michael would say when they got back. He’d be absolutely furious. And rightly so. Any good father worth his brush would have the police out looking for his children if they’d been gone for… goodness gracious! 16 hours! Had it really been so long?! They must be starving. She almost jokingly asked how many police officers were looking for them, but her maturity overcame her shock at the situation, and she held back. She considered asking it as a serious question, before deciding that if the library wasn’t completely up to date with what was happening in the house itself, it probably had no idea about the outside world.

As the initial shock faded, a crushing regret starting ebbing away at her heart. She should never have brought them here. This was serious. Jane and Michael probably thought they’d been attacked, or kidnapped, or worse. Mary didn’t like to think about them being so stressed because of what she had done, but that didn’t stop the images from flashing through her mind’s eye. She was supposed to be the responsible one. She was supposed to look after them. She was the only one who had known what they were going into and she’d let them get split up! She had to make sure they got home safely as soon as possible. She was the nanny, it was her job. And Mary poppins had never given up fulfilling her duty.

This was her chance to get some help. To prepare herself for anything that the house could throw at her. She could ask almost anything.

As she thought of her question, she remembered the artist workshop. It had been such a disaster. She’d never known anything to actually crawl out of the paintings. But then again, she’d never known the house’s inhabitants to be so frustrated with their circumstances. She began to worry that other rooms could have become dangerous in their displeasure. What if something hurt the children? Or Jack? What if she couldn’t repair the damage? The thought alone made her sick to her stomach, as she did her best to block the unnecessarily gruesome mental images that her imagination had not-so-helpfully provided for her.

“Are there any rooms I need to be careful of? Are there any that are dangerous?” A rather large book flew down, containing every potentially troublesome room out of the thousands the house contained in total. She opened it up and skimmed through, carefully committing as many as she could to memory. While some were the type of room that actually had something that could deliberately hurt you, most were simply hazardous. Such as several rooms containing water, with the obvious hazard that you could fall in and drown. This meant rooms such as the pond with the weeping cherry tree were featured. Cutting out rooms like that (since she knew even the children were smart enough not to get hurt in such ways) meant that she only had to remember a small portion of the rooms in the book. It seemed that there wasn’t actually very many that were outright dangerous. Afterall, it would rather strange for Richard to willingly put them in his own home. The ones that were problematic looked to have once been fairly innocent, but were now filled with frustration. That is, all except for one.

Mary noted that this particular room seemed to have been deliberately made to be dangerous if one were to stay there for too long. It was simply named, ‘The “Forest”’. Reading through what the book had to offer, she realised its simple name didn’t come close to showing the problems it caused. It seemed that the quotation marks were Richard’s idea of sarcasm. The room was never meant to be a forest. It was a normal bedroom but was in the process of nature reclaiming it. This seemed to have been going on for a while, gradually getting worse as Richard added more rooms and more magic. He didn’t seem to have been particularly bothered by this as, according to the text, it had taken everything back, destroying the furniture and opening it up to the outside world (the sort of strange outside world that was contained within the the cherry tree room). And now it attempted to reclaim everything that stayed there for long enough. She’d have to watch out for that.

Little did she know, that those pages could have answered several of her previous questions too. Because in The “Forest”, the grass had already started reaching up to claim new material. And it’s sleeping victims never even noticed.


	8. The Turning

Being tired can make you do crazy things. We all know that. Usually, it’s falling asleep in a particularly strange place, and when you wake up, you might laugh at yourself a little because it’s all your fault that your back’s sore. However, even when you’re tired, you tend not to do something as crazy as sleep on train tracks or in a garage with the car’s engine running (unless you’re after a different kind of sleep). Of course they had no way of knowing the forest would do what it did, but really, who would ever think that it’s a good idea to sleep outside?

Jack had been the first to wake, startled by the fact that the ballroom was slowly filling with mud. Looking out ti the outside world, everything was tilted, as if he was sinking. Wait. He was sinking?! Clambering to his feet, Jack waded through the sludge to reach the edge of the image, and look out. Standing at the painting’s edge, the mud outside came up to his hip, but was seeping through onto his side a little slower, so he only stood knee deep.

His heart raced as he called out for help, but it seemed that the he’d been turning with he slept. His chest tightened and he couldn’t draw in a deep enough breath to be able to choke out more than a whisper, nevermind shout. The sudden exertion was far too taxing on him as his breaths turned quick and shallow. He tried to stay up, for fear he’d get stuck in the mud if he fell over, but his legs were already going weak, and without warning, he toppled over. One arm flung out to break his fall, but the other one couldn’t even move. It was cold and tingling, the sensation having travelled from his fingers, up his arm to his shoulder where it spread further from there, freezing the left side of his neck and torso. Turning became a significant challenge, as he tried to push himself up, his spine was trying to turn completely rigid.

“John! Annabel! Georgie! HEL-” He couldn’t even finish what he was saying, before the freezing sensation settled on the left side of his jaw, like a skeletal hand clenching his mouth shut. It was impossible to speak. And the mud was making what limited mobility he had left, even worse.

Suddenly, the world tilted again, as the painting fall backward, facing up towards the sky. This made it even easier for the mud to flow over the image, smothering and filling the room much faster. As Jack was knocked backwards, he found himself falling into greenery, as plants were beginning to grow at an unnatural rate under the painting, through the ballroom and out of the canvas. He could swear he heard the canvas beginning to rip for the ones that were forcing their way out. And the tear seemed to echo throughout the room, which was gradually being torn apart.

The mud was overwhelming, and Jack could swear he’d inhaled some, but he physically couldn’t cough anymore to find out. His whole left side had stopped, as he attempted to push himself out of the mud, scrambling as best he could up the staircase at the back of the room, where the sludge hadn’t yet reached. But upon reaching the top, found he was way too out of breath to do anything but lie down and wait for the inevitable.

Outside the canvas, the sudden thwap of it falling over was enough to wake John, who’d been slowly coming around already.

“JACK!” Snatching the canvas from the mud, he wiped away what he could, but found the image was badly smeared, and he was even more horrified to see the damage the plants had done. Frantically, he scanned the image for any sign of the leerie, but he couldn’t seem to spot him anywhere.

“Jack? Where are you?! Are you ok?!” There was a moment of silence before he saw an arm rise at the back of the image, where Jack was lying at the top of the stairs. At that perspective, it was hard to see, but upon closer inspection, he appeared to be giving a thumbs up. John let out a sigh of relief and the arm dropped. It was only a few moments later that Jack was pushing himself to sit up, seemingly favouring his right side. John watched him, starting to fear for his friend. He may have said he was alright, but he certainly didn’t look it. The poor man was pale and weak. But he didn’t get a chance to say anything before Jack turned to him, and his face morphed to one of pure terror.

Shuffling back until he hit the wall, Jack just couldn’t push the words past his lips as he looked at John.

“What? What’s wrong?” He was definitely looking at John. But what was the problem? His hand rose to his cheek, feeling around for anything that could be wrong, “Is something on my- ” Then he felt it.

Fur.

A snout.

He dropped the painting in shock as his hands ran over his head. His ears were small and had moved to the top of his head, and thick brown fur was growing all over him. He looked down to notice his hands were more akin to paws at this point, with claws where his nails should be.

He hadn’t meant to scream, but the realisation was too much. He was a bear. And as his head whipped around to his siblings, he couldn’t stop.

The two of them were up like a shot at the sudden noise, allowing John to really see what had become of them. Annabel’s skin had been replaced with a collection of leaves, with her short bob haircut now being grass. Her dress was made up of petals and dandelions, and even the flower that Begonia had given them had fused itself to her shoulder. Georgie was even worse. His skin had turned to bark and his limbs were part way through becoming branches. He struggled to move to push away the foliage, replacing his hair, out of his eyes.

This was bad, this was very bad.

“AAAAAAHHHH! WHATS GOING ON?!” Annabel’s scream was loud enough to startle the gods as her gaze flung between her brothers and the painting.

“It must be this forest! It’s done something to us! I don’t think Jack’s the only one who’s turning, now. We need to find Mary, quickly!” His siblings didn’t argue with him as John picked up the canvas and prepared to leave.

“Come on!” He said, “Gillie, your going to have to run, there’s no time.” But as he went to climb onto the Not-Quite-Giraffe, he noticed something particularly alarming.

“Hang on… where’s Gillie?” There was a moment of silence as the three of them looked around, only to see that he was really gone. Georgie was on the verge of crying, devastated to lose the toy his mother had made him, but he was able to relax a little as he finally spotted him.

“LOOK!” He dashed across the forest to find Gillie tangled in a mass of branches, leaves and twigs. Only now, he was no longer the lively creature making all the wrong noises, he was just Gillie, Georgie’s stuffed giraffe.

Annabel was the first to walk over and retrieve the now lifeless toy, only to find that as she reached up into the mess of branches, that her new form had made her quite delicate. It only took one false move as he retracted her arm for a twig to catch against her, tearing a line through her leaves right the way down from her elbow to the back of her hand.

Had it been her normal skin, the large wound would have been quite a gory mess, but her new form meant all that emerged from the cut was the little bit of water from inside the leaves. However, that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

“OW!” The burning sting was enough to bring a few tears to her eyes, which she quickly choked back. Clutching her arm, she tried not to look at the few bits if twig embedded in the wound, being too busy trying to overcome the waves of agony that were threatening to make her vomit. She took a few steadying breaths to wave off the lightheadedness, before turning to her brothers, who were still staring in shock,

“Maybe one of you should get it.” John quickly rushed over, and reached in to grab Gillie. It was uncomfortable, and he was badly scratched when he emerged, but not nearly as badly as his sister.

“Looks like we need to be careful in our new bodies. We don’t just look different, we actually are different.” John passed Gillie to Georgie, who used all his strength to move his wooden fingers to grasp the toy.

“We need to find Mary. We can’t stop even once if we want a chance of ever getting out of here.” Annabel commanded, “I don’t want to turn into a plant today.” John nodded, canvas in hand. Jack had fallen completely silent by now, but he didn’t want to point that out to his siblings when they were already panicked enough, so he didn’t mention it.

The three of them took no more time to debate their options before they were racing out of the nearest exit. Dashing through room after room, they didn’t stop for anything; not for the aquarium, or the wine cellar, or the room with the planes, or even the magic circus. They kept running. And when the bark on Georgie’s legs became too stiff to keep up, John carried him. They couldn’t stop. Not for anything. Even as Annabel became too weak to run, she joined Georgie, sitting on John’s back, who by now, had found it more comfortable to run on all fours.

But fighting against their transformations was getting harder by the second. Georgie’s whole body was turning rigid and he was starting to slip. Annabel kept him upright for as long as she could, but her arms (that no longer resembled anything more than a cluster of leaves) were getting weaker by the second, along with the rest of her.

After a slight jolt from John tripping, the two were flung to the ground and despite trying to use every ounce of their strength, they couldn’t get back up. John pawed at them desperately, hoping beyond hope that he could will them to stand again. But they didn’t respond to his jabbing, or his voice, or anything.

“Come on! Please! You have to get up! We have to go!” The two were silent, Georgie’s mouth even being sealed by the bark. John tried to shake the awake, but it was hopeless. He could feel himself changing. Holding onto a coherent thought was becoming more difficult, as his animalistic instincts became more prominent. Taking several seconds to gather his thoughts into words, he managed to blurt out between growls,

“JACK! HELP! I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!” But the leerie had problems of his own. At the top of his stairs, he lay on his back, almost completely frozen. His chest stuttered to draw in any amount of air as Jack lay gasping desperately. He couldn’t move or speak even if he tried. But that didn’t stop John from screaming,

“JACK! PLEASE!” He was seeing red. Something about this new body was turning him savage. And with no thought, he struck out and slashed the canvas in half with his monstrous claws, letting out a wounded roar. Kicking the remains of the painting away, he furiously paced. This wasn’t the end. IT COULDN’T BE!

Frantically looking around the room did nothing to help, as he realised they were only in another lounge. There wasn’t a statue, or a painting, or an animal, or a flower, or a mannequin, or anything to beg for help.

Choking back a sob, he flopped to the ground. They were so close. They just needed Mary and everything would have been fine. If they hadn’t slept in that forest, they could’ve had a chance. Where was she?! She’d never let anything like this happen before. Why now?! Looking to his siblings, he remembered their father. What would he do? And Aunt Jane? They hadn’t seen them in ages. He wanted to go home. Was that too much to ask?! He didn’t want to stay forever. But time was running out. Georgie was starting to take root like a normal tree, breaching the floorboards to reach the soil underneath. And poor Annabel resembled nothing more than a patch of grass and weeds, with her pink gerbera blooming proudly in the middle. But as John tried to remember when they had been happier, he found he was struggling to even remember their names. He was just a bear. And as he tried to cling on to his own mind, he could only choke out,

“Mary, where are you?”


	9. How Are You Going To Explain that?

The first thing you need to know is that Richard Teaside is a forgetful man. Really, really forgetful. He’s not the type of man to forget to buy bread at the shops, but he’d forget to go to the shops at all. In fact, that had become such a common occurrence that the other household members had started producing things themselves, so he didn’t have to leave at all. That’s why it didn’t matter that the rooms moved. He never had to leave his home.

Until last week.

Unfortunately, he finally finished the last book he owned and was in need of buying more. A few hundred would last him a while. But unfortunately, he’d forgotten to keep his promise to Mary and keep the rooms still. So he found when he tried to leave, that he only got lost. Unable to find his way to the front door or his own room, he wrote a letter to Mary and let it be passed between the other rooms until someone could get it out to a postbox. He then promptly forgot about it and found his way back to his own room. His problem of running out of books was quickly fixed as he designed a new room full of writers, to produce new works just for him, giving him a new reason to never leave.

That’s the other thing you may find useful to know. Richard Teaside didn’t like people but he did love his own home, where he could keep his own company. It only took a moment before he was invested in his alone time once more.

The letter, on the other hand, spent time with just about every member of the house, as it was passed around all week until, finally, finally, a very lucky statue managed to get it outside, where it was tied to the tail of a kite who’s mission was to fling the message in the nearest postbox. So with it being so long ago, Richard forgot his problem and forgot he’d called for Mary’s help.

That’s why, when his door was flung open, he couldn’t help the rather pathetic yelp that burst from his vocal cords.

“RICHARD!” Now here’s the thing. Richard never remembers, but Mary never forgets. She remembered his promise not to add more rooms or let them move again, she remembered where he liked to stay in the house, but most important of all, she remembered how worried he’d been in the letter. So seeing him sat reading his book quite happily, she was beginning to do something rather new: get angry.

The nanny walked with a furious intent. She raised her voice, when she first spoke, but upon having his full attention, shifted back to a low controlled volume. Her tone was stern and strict, as usual, with an extra hint of venom as she walked up to where he sat and stood over him.

“I told you not to do this again!”

“Good morning to you too?” His genuine confusion and slight disgust for her attitude only made Mary seethe. Had she been a less respectable sort of woman, she may have even been inclined to slap him.

“I have been lost in this psychotic maze for-” she checked her watch, “25 hours, and yet here you are happily enjoying your book without a care in the world!” She said, scandalised.

Richard could barely do anything more than open and close his mouth like a fish out of water. In all his years of life- and there had certainly been quite a few- he had never quite known how to handle Mary at the best of times, nevermind the worst. He knew nothing more than to just go along with whatever she said, though in his current circumstance, he wasn’t exactly sure that that would be of much use.

“Mary, I am sorry. Really, I am. But this house really isn’t as bad as you seem to be suggesting.” She scowled at him,

“Well considering the state of the house outside and your letter, I’d imagine you haven’t been able to get out in at least a few months. But considering the state of yourself, it’s quite obvious. And I would certainly say that that is quite bad.”

It was true, but she was certainly underestimating him. He hadn’t seen the outside world in over a year. And as he looked down at himself, it was plain to see he didn’t have anywhere to go, people to see or responsibilities to uphold. His black and white checkered trousers had faded to grey and slightly darker grey, while the shirt he’d been marinating in was covered in stains that could never wash out. His waistcoat had long since fallen to pieces and been replaced by a collection of colourful ties that he had sewn together, and he had given up on ever wearing a jacket. At least his shoes were clean, though that wasn’t because they were new of well cared for. They were just as old as everything else, they just hadn’t been used outside yet. He didn’t go on walks in the open air very often. In fact, he didn’t walk much at all.

Now it’s not like he never washed or never moved. But he’d lost his wardrobe several years ago, so when it came to having a shower and washing his clothes, he’d just put them back on when he was done. He was glad that he’d managed to attach a permanent washroom to his lounge; Mary really would’ve been furious if he hadn’t cleaned himself in over a year.

Sighing, he adjusted his glasses- a rather unusual pair that looped around the back of his head to hold a circular lens over each eye, rather than reaching around his face- and ran a bony hand through his auburn curls.

“Forgive me, Mary,” he said, “while I’m not displeasured by your company, I have to ask, why did you come here if you’re so angry with me? You could’ve given up at any point and just left.” Her expression, for the briefest of moments, turned, somehow, even sourer than before, before she composed herself, letting out a tired sigh as she did so.

“Three reasons.” She said, holding up a new finger for each one. “Firstly, I am never angry. Second, I do not give up, especially when it is to help my family, and especially if they have specifically asked for my help. And thirdly, I’m not here for you. Not now.” Richard was rather puzzled by this, as, from his perspective, she was definitely there for him.

“My friend and three children in my care are lost in this house. I know that at least one of them is in danger, and they’ve all been trapped here for over 25 hours. So while my initial plan was to help you, my priority has changed to get them all back home again. So I suggest, before you start being clever with me, that you have a long hard think about how you’re affecting others and stop trying to pass the blame.”Her snappish tone suddenly disappeared as she eyed up the rest of the room, seemingly looking around for anything that may be of use in her endeavour.

“Now if you don’t mind, I’d suggest you stop these rooms immediately, and never start them again. Then we can find my friends and undo the damage your house has caused. You can stay on your own for a long as you jolly well like after I have them all back safely.” Richard shrank back a little under her powerful gaze, but once he found his voice again, he offered her a determined nod and said,

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do.”

Mary seemed happier at that, though her expression didn’t soften, as she was clearly still quite stressed. So Richard got right to work before she could get even more upset with him.

Prancing across the room, he approached a large ornate mirror that stretched from the floor up to the dark ceiling. Giving it a tap, the image seemed to shift, no longer showing a reflection of Richard, but one of another room.

“There’s four of them, you say?”

“Yes that’s right.” Richard started carefully inspecting each room he was shown, tapping on the mirror when he was done to show him the next one. They, thankfully, got quite lucky with the rooms, as it was only after a minute or so of searching that they came across a lounge that was quite out of the ordinary. The room looked a mess; full of broken rubbish and leaves. But the two things that stood out the most was the tree that had taken root and the bear that was curled up and whimpering.

“That’s certainly an odd sight.” Richard mumbled.

The thing is, in such a strange house, they shouldn’t have known it was them. In any other house, it would be enough evidence, but not here. Not in a house where the plants come to life. She had no way to know what had happened to them and should’ve simply assumed that they were somewhere else. And yet Mary knew, immediately, what had happened. Though it wasn’t quite because she knew them so well, but the fact she saw Gillie being held protectively by the tree’s branches.

Without a word, Mary stepped through, her eyes wide in horror (though she otherwise remained composed). Upon reaching the bear, she knelt at its side and entangled her fingers in it’s thick fur,

“It’s alright now. We’re going to fix this.” At the sound of her voice, the bear looked up into her eyes, realisation dawning on him of who had come to their rescue. And with a joyful roar, it pounced on her for a hug.

“MARY!” Richard’s cry startled everyone, leading both Mary and the bear to watch him curiously. To his credit, it was a whole bear that just jumped on his cousin, so it made sense to be scared. But at the same time, it was also quite a small bear, clearly only being very young. And if Mary could handle children and magical creatures, she could handle a young bear. Mary simply laughed, thoroughly delighted to be with the children again, and looked back to her cousin.

“Richard, if you would be so good as to switch them all back, that would be lovely.” He was utterly flabbergasted. But knowing he had to listen to her, he dashed out of view of their mirror-portal and returned a few moments later with a small carpet bag, quite similar to the kind that Mary carried.

Settling down at Mary’s side, he started pulling things out.

“Right. A brown bear. I think I have the right things for that. Let’s see…” He pulled out a tin of tuna and a can opener, wrenching it open before dumping it out into a bowl along with grass, berries and a sprinkling of flour, before mixing it into a rather foul smelling paste (the tuna was definitely out of date).

He held it to the bear who recoiled in disgust. Richard sighed,

“You don’t have to eat it, just smell it.” The bear looked to Mary, who did her best to encourage the bear, and without much more deliberation, he finally took a whiff.

The stench was pretty powerful, enough that he nearly vomited. But it did the job, and the bear began to transform into something more recognisable. The fur fell away to reveal his clothes still underneath as his body contorted back to that of John, now sitting before them with a look of total shock, and definitely in need of a wash to get rid of the hairs that had fallen on his face and clothing.

“I’m normal again!” Diving into Mary’s arms for another hug, John couldn’t help but laugh and cheer.

“Now do the others!” He said, clearly excited to see some more magic. Richard didn’t hesitate in moving to the tree next and removing several powders and pastes, mixing them together on a leaf, before smearing it over the bark. It only took a few moments before the bark started to fall away, the rest being pushed off by Georgie, emerging from the centre like a freshly hatched chick, and covered in dirt.

Richard then moved to the patch of grass, taking out a large tub of blue pellets and pouring them into an absurdly large bowl of water, before adding rose petals. Everything began to dissolve as he added some pink granules, and once he was ready, he tossed the water over the patch of grass. Yet again, the mixture worked its magic and Annabel was soon rising out of the ground, also covered head-to-toe into dirt.

Once the three children were freed, Richard looked amongst them, pride smeared all over his face at the sight of his work, but that was quickly wiped away when he asked,

“What about the fourth one, then.” What he hadn’t expected, was for John to sheepishly hand him… actually he had no idea what it was. There were bits of broken wood with some kind of filthy shredded sheet stapled to it, all held together on a wish and a prayer.

“They got turned into a pile of rubbish?”

“Not exactly,” John started, “he was in a painting, but the painting got damaged in the room that turned us into nature.” He grimaced at the mess, briefly catching sight of Mary eyeing him up, clearly concerned on whether or not he could do anything about it.

“So,” Georgie asked, “can you fix him?” Richard looked back to his bag, running through a mental checklist of everything he needed.

“Sure I can.” Firstly, he unpicked the staples so he could pull away the useless supports of its broken wooden frame. Once he had the canvas fabric free, he pulled an entire sewing machine from his bag and using what he referred to as, his ‘good thread’, he stitched the shredded pieces back together. Next, he brought out a steaming jug of hot water, which he poured out into a bowl, before adding salt to it. He gave it a quick swill around with his hand before soaking a cloth in it and pressing it to the sheet. Carefully, Richard cleaned the mud and let the hot water soak into and lift the paint. Peeling it away, he was able to remove everything, leaving behind Jack, who was starting to regain movement.

“Alright, lets try this. Mary, if you could hold this side, and you hold this side. Keep it taut.” Mary and John each held one side, aiming the canvas to the floor. All Richard had to do was come behind it and give the fabric a hard whack for Jack to come tumbling out of the painting with a groan, covered head to toe in a thin layer of dry paint.

“There we go. All better!” Richard smiled to where Jack was picking himself up off the floor, the children practically tackling him in a hug.

“Thank you Richard, now, the rooms?” Mary’s arms were crossed and had an eyebrow raised, clearly sceptical as to whether he’d actually do anything about the house. But as he looked at the five of them, and how he nearly killed them with his system, he couldn’t help but feel she was right for wanting him to change. If Mary had actually been forced to give up and leave, then a man and three children would have been left to die. And he couldn’t rely on always being so lucky. Maybe it really was time to sort things out and start living a normal life again. Maybe even go outside and meet real living people. Maybe…

“Alright, I’ll do it. This was a close call. Really close. And I can’t bear the thought of people getting hurt because I’m being selfish. I’ll fix the rooms this time. And I won’t let them do this again. I promise.” Mary smiled, and for a moment, all was well with the world. That is, until she said,

“Good, because I will be coming back to check.” Richard smiled, but cursed in his own mind. She was going to be the death of him.

“Haha, alrighty then. Let’s get going.” He beamed with forced enthusiasm.

Taking the five of them back through the mirror, the children bombarded Richard with questions, mostly along the lines of ‘How big is the house?’, ‘Why is it so big?’, ‘Why is the outside so gross?’ and ‘Why did it try to kill us?’ (That one hurt the most). Though they mostly asked just so they could refer to him as Rumble Tumble over and over again. Jack considered calling him by one of the inappropriate joke names he’d thought of earlier, but decided against it what with the children being there. In the end, however, Richard was well and truly reminded why he didn’t go out much. Which is why he was in such a hurry for them to leave.

From his lounge, he was able to rearrange the rooms to replace his door with the house’s front door. He offered them all a quick goodbye, but was even quicker at pushing them out again into the street.

“Richard, don’t forget I’ll be coming back, so this place better still be sensible when I-”

“Yes, yes, I know! Bye!” And without letting her finish, he slammed the door shut (though he was unable to lock it thanks to Mary’s method of entrance the day before).

“Good gracious. You’d think he’d never even learnt the word ‘manners’.” Mary’s grumbling was slightly interrupted by the fact that the sun was distractingly brilliant after spending so long indoors. Jack and the children happily bathed in its light and didn’t seem to be particularly bothered by Richard’s hasty farewell. They were too busy preparing the bicycle to get home again.

“Come on Mary.” Jack called, “I kinda need you for this ladder seat to work.” The nanny pulled herself away from the front door and rejoined the group, taking her place on the far side of the ladder.

They set off with smiles on their faces, and Mary was honestly surprised by that. Considering how stressful it must’ve been to lose your own body, they were so overjoyed to be back to normal and outside that they didn’t really care. She’d have to have a talk with them all individually to see if they were really alright, but for the moment, she too was content in just enjoying the morning sunshine. And to think, she’d been so worried about whether or not they’d all be able to get out alright. But here they were, all accounted for. And was it really any surprise? The Banks family (which she considered Jack to be apart of) had always been made of tough stuff. You couldn’t stop them no matter how hard you tried. They’d always find a way. Afterall, nothing is impossible. Though one thing certainly came close.

When they pulled up on Cherry Tree Lane, the sight of the police car reminded them how long they’d been gone for. The thought alone of having to deal with Michael and Jane was daunting enough, nevermind actually doing anything about it. Jack looked over them, taking note of his own paint stained body, Annabel and Georgie’s smears of mud, and John, who was still scratching himself thanks to all the hairs that had settled in his clothes. Mary knew exactly what he was thinking as Jane spotted them through the living room window, practically screaming at the sight and running out to greet them.

“Well,” Jack groaned, “we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! New story starts next week.


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